The full Golf Buddy line; the Voice 2 shown bottom right">
"How would you like to buy a watch?"
The full Golf Buddy line; the Voice 2 shown bottom right
Golf Buddy has the most complete line of distance
measuring devices in the business. And since day
one,
they have been subscription free, and I like that. As
a
matter of fact, I’ve got a GPS watch from a
competing
company sitting in a drawer somewhere because I
just
don’t want to be bothered with renewing another
online
account (and I’m not interested in annual fees).
I recently got a Golf Buddy Voice 2, and decided to
take it for a test drive at the gorgeous La Costa
Resort
in Carlsbad. The device is so light and compact that
it
can be clipped just about anywhere, even a hat brim.
For me, it just felt right on the belt, just above my
right leg where it wouldn’t interfere with my swing
or
getting in and out of my pocket.
The sturdy clip slid over my belt perfectly, and I
knew
that it wasn’t coming loose all day. (As a matter of
fact,
I forgot to take it off after the round and didn’t
realize I
had it on until I got into my house and it told me it
was
“searching for satellite.”)
At the beginning of my round, I heard that same
message when I powered the unit on, and because I
forgot to turn the Golf Buddy Voice 2 on until I had
started my round, I was delayed by a hole before I
started getting yardages. No big deal – next time I
play
I’ll remember to turn the unit on when I’m warming
up.
Once I started getting yardages, by voice, I was
thrilled
with not looking at a screen. I just touched the large
button, got my yardage from a friendly female voice,
and was on my way. My playing partner got a kick
out
of the process, and helped me verify the accuracy of
the Golf Buddy system. (It’s accurate within a yard.)
As I got more confident with Golf Buddy Voice, I
started to hit the button a second time, giving me
front
and back yardages. I found that to be extremely
helpful. At this point, you might be thinking “my
yardage watch/device/phone app does all that, what
do
I need this for?”
Indeed, it’s going to come down to personal
preference. But I found the Golf Buddy Voice 2 to be
unobtrusive, and FUN to use on the course. And I got
a
big reminder of the benefit of having something
attached to your body on the 15th hole, when my
friend couldn’t find his range finder. He drove back
to
the 14th tee, where he knew he left it, but still
couldn’t
find it. After resigning himself to a lost and found
search (range finders seldom get returned) a
maintenance guy drove up to us and returned it.
He had picked it up on the 14th tee prior to my
friend
figuring out he lost it.
Through that two-hole process, my Golf Buddy Voice
was happily giving me yardages, front center and
back.
And I’m going to give all the credit to technology, but
I
played par golf and made a bunch of birdies. As a
fairly
regular laser user, it’s a nice change of pace to get
“front-middle-back” yardages, and I think I picked
the
right club more often because of it.
There are several other features in the Golf Buddy
Voice 2, including the ability to “mark” a spot and
then
figure out how far you were from another spot, for
example from the tee to the landing zone in a
fairway.
If you play a course a lot this could be very useful.
For
me, that’s probably going deeper than I need to, but
in
playing around with it I could tell that it was easy to
use.
The company maps out courses, with thousands pre-
installed on this tiny device. If you’re tired of losing
lasers, want to simplify the game, and have fun in
the
process, I highly recommend Golf Buddy Voice 2.
And
the company offers just about every other variant of
distance measuring device, from GPS watches (with
an
attractive ladies model) to a tradition laser. Check
them out at
www.golfbuddy.com.