I have been only playing for about 2 years and went throught the same process you are about 3 months ago. I ended up buying the SkyCaddy GPS and would tell you to see if a friend or another golfer you know has one before you make the purchase. I am not sure I would buy one again but now that I have it I do use it most of the time as it says me time when playing and when not sitting next to a yardage marker or on the fairway. I travel alot and find the ability to get courses outside my area is great. I have used it in Myrtle Beach and Las Vegas as well as several courses in my home area. I have found the most benefit at local courses I have set up myself as those courses tend not to have as many markers as the more expensive courses. This does take about an extra 15 minutes the first time to set up. It does not give you measurements to get out of trouble like a RangeFinder would do - ie how far can I hit it if going across the fairway to get out of trouble, and the layup yardage from the GPS is based on an unknown golf player. It does help out in lettling me know on new courses what the carries will be but having a yardage book with pictures helps to. The skycaddy provides diffenent levels of information for different courses so all are not layed out completely some just have center green numbers. The bottom line I think is that having both is the way to go but that gets expensive, so check the Skycaddy list of courses before trying and there is a 30 day full refund policy which I almost did but kept it in the end. Hope this helps as I know when looking for information honest replys are great.