With the 150th Open Championship underway at St Andrews my thoughts turn to golf. As an occasional player, most golf technology is wasted on me -- the latest titanium and graphite clubs still don’t prevent me from over or under-hitting shots massively. What could really help my game is a professional caddie to help me judge distances and choose the most appropriate club.
For those of us who have to make do without a bag man, there is always a GPS rangefinder. These use satellite signals to pinpoint your location to within a few meters, then combine this with course data to give you an accurate distance to the front, back and centre of each green.
Dedicated GPS rangefinders cost £100-350, the cheapest systems offering simple text readouts while top-of-the-range models like the SkyCaddie SGX include maps of each hole to allow you to plan your approach.
However, the features of even the most expensive dedicated rangefinders are eclipsed by more modestly priced applications for mobile phones. Here is my pick of the best range-finder apps you can download to your handset.
iPhone
The iPhone has the most competitive market with more than a dozen apps available. The pick of the bunch is Golfshot (£17.99) which not only looks beautiful, but also has the widest range of useful features: a built-in scorecard; upload of your statistics to the web; club recommendations based on your hitting distances; and neatly annotated aerial photography showing hazards and targets.
Golfshot also has the best course mapping on test with more than 33,000 courses included. Coverage in Scotland is excellent and in the unlikely event that they don’t have your local course, you can submit a request and they’ll map it for free.
BlackBerry
While there are a number of scorecard apps for the BlackBerry, it has a surprisingly limited amount of range finders. The only one worthwhile for Scottish golfers is GreenFinder ($35 per year). It’s far more limited than Golfshot, but still represents an upgrade from most entry-level dedicated units at around one-third of the cost.
Android
The best range-finder app for Android phones also happens to be the cheapest. SkyDroid ($1.99) may lack the visual polish of a typical iPhone golf app, but it makes up for it with a no-nonsense layout and good course coverage. On top of that, the company behind SkyDroid provides a tool to allow you to map new courses yourself, using satellite images to pinpoint tees, greens and hazards.
The one problem common to all golf apps on mobile phones is the drain they place on the battery. It’s not the fault of the apps themselves, but is simply a result of extra draw that GPS activity places on the battery. While it’s possible to lock your phone between shots to preserve battery life, you’ll find the GPS takes up to a minute to relocate you before your next shot -- a wait that becomes tedious after the 30th time on a round.
A better approach is to optimise the other settings on your phone -- such as screen brightness and push email -- to maximise battery life. See below for our complete list of power-saving tips. Best on test: Golfshot for iPhone £17.99 Rating: 5 / 5 Positives: Reasonably priced; excellent course coverage; slick interface. Negatives: May require a supplementary battery for long rounds.
Power saving tips Make sure your phone is fully charged before you set off. If your golf app supports it, start your round before you leave home. This will allow the app to download all the course images before you set off, minimising delays and battery drain on the course. Turn the screen brightness down as much as you can live with. Once you’ve got the course images downloaded turn off Wi-Fi and 3G. Turn off Notifications and Bluetooth. Turn off push email or email polling.
If you’re still struggling with battery life (or if you don’t want to compromise on speed and features) consider one of the battery extenders now available. These are typically close-fitting sleeves that contain extra batteries to give your phone a boost.
iPhone users may consider the Mophie JuicePack Air at around £69 or the slightly cheaper MiLi Powerskin (£49). Cheaper options are available starting at around £15, but these typically hang off the bottom of the phone rather than neatly wrapping around it.
Android and BlackBerry users will probably find it easier, cheaper and neater to carry a spare battery that they can swap out if their main battery drains completely.
