Golfers Talk: About Range Finders and Other Aids
Golfers Talk: recreational golfers from the Google+ Golf Community are talking about how they use on-course yardage aids.
How far is that bunker? How much carry do I need to get across the hazard? What’s it going to take to get to the center of the green?
From the gross tee-to-green yardage on the scorecard to an uber Bushnell range finder, we all have some on-course aids we use to estimate distance for our shots. Even I — the quintessential short girl in the foursome — who can rarely reach the fairway bunkers off the tee, need some strategies for estimating yardages, particularly as I navigate hazards and close in on the green.
Most golf courses give us some basic information as we make our way down the fairway. Aiming sticks are always helpful as are yardages on sprinkler heads and those blue, white, yellow and red markers we all look for.
But it’s a rare golfer who’s able to put her ball adjacent to a sprinkler head or a colored marker. And distance to the green is only one of the yardage estimates I need during a routine round of golf. What about distance to that tree I need to go over or around? Or distance over the water? How much carry do I need to get beyond the hazard?
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Sam Adams wrote an interesting post last week that’s given me a great deal of food for thought about club selection and gauging distance, but the fact of the matter is that even when I take into account all the intervening factors — wind, air temperature, humidity, elevation, and the position of Uranus in relation to Mars — I still need to have a fairly accurate yardage before I can make an informed club selection.
I’ve used yards aids in the past, but right now I don’t carry a conventional device when I play a round of golf. Although I seem to be in the minority, I prefer to depend on the available on-course markers and my own eyes in a sort of Girl-Against-Nature mentality.
About a third of the Google+ Golf Community are right there with me, eschewing both range finders and any of the many GPS systems, in favor of a more basic approach to getting yardage estimates.
GloBie likes range finders, particularly from inside 100 yards, and that certainly makes sense to me. That’s also where I need to get more precision in my shots.
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Darrell Williams, who probably has a fairly low index, reports that he shaves 3 to 5 shots off his round when he’s using a range finder.
But whether they use a range finder to go pin-hunting, like Darrell Williams, or just get a distance to the center of the green — Frank Hoxsey’s and Earl Schmidt’s approach — the Google+ Golf Community members clearly feel that range finders are very useful on-course aids.
The Golf Community had less to say about how they use GPS systems, although slightly more than a third of the people who responded to my poll indicated that they carry a GPS. It may be that there’s not that much to say? Courses are loaded in electronically and whether the device is mounted on the cart on on a golfer’s wrist or somewhere in between, it provides a hole-by-hole electronic roadmap of the course.
Among recreational golfers, very few of us actually keep yardage books, although apps like NoteCaddie could change that practice; and, oddly, no one in the Google+ Golf Community admitted to asking others for yardages. I don’t believe them.