GolfPass Writer Brandon Tucker’s picks for the best Apple Watch golf app to use in 2021
“From GPS and shot tracking to strokes gained data, app makers are stepping up their game for the world’s most popular wearable.
Since launching in 2020, Roundabout has vaulted up the ranks of established app makers to become the best app for serious golfers using Apple Watch. Its shot tracking is the clear-cut winner among the apps that don’t require club tags, while the app dashboard provides illuminating strokes gained and traditional analysis using your scoring and shot data. The watch has a clear and simple display with GPS showing front-middle-back yardages to the green. But here’s where it particularly stands out:
Auto-shot detection and A.I. breadcrumbs
When you hit a shot during a round, the watch detects it, vibrates and prompts you to select the club you hit. Voila. But the secret sauce is what happens when it misses a shot. Every shot tracker I’ve ever used – club tags and wearables alike – misses shots. But Roundabout does the best job at predicting where those shots likely happened. It uses a combination of artificial intelligence and breadcrumbs tracing your steps with a little blue line. So when reviewing your round afterwards, it’s that much easier to identify the location of a shot it missed and tag that spot with a shot. Golf is, after all, a game of misses.
Unlike Arccos and Shot Scope, which rely on the user to set the pin location to determine proximity of approach shots to the hole and putting stats, Roundabout instead prompts the golfer to input their first putt length and how many putts were needed. (Because you aren’t tagging the specific location of your approach shot on the green, it means your irons yardage data won’t be as accurate).”
Real-time Shot Measuring
The Roundabout watch app has real-time shot measuring from your last recorded location. This is a favorite feature of mine for any wearable because if you hit the ball offline, knowing exactly how far you’ve walked off the tee gives you a good idea of when to start looking seriously for your stray. It also helps give you a better idea of how the wind affected your previous shot.
But shot tracking doesn’t really matter if the statistics dashboard isn’t insightful, and V1 delivers here in a way that rivals Arccos. It slices and dices your rounds and shot data in a multitude of ways. Roundabout Coach tells me which facets of my game are losing the most shots and where I should spend my practice time. Right now, it looks like I’m losing strokes because I’m not jarring enough 6-10 footers.
Roundabout has two pricing tiers. The “Birdie” tier is $59.99/year and provides Apple Watch functions, shot tracking and strokes gained analytics. The “Eagle” tier ($119.99/yr) offers “Virtual Coach” and “Virtual Caddie” that provide both in-round assistance based on your swing history and post-round analysis. This is the most expensive Apple Watch golf app per year but it delivers the goods. Download Roundabout here.“
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Download Roundabout in the app store today and start tracking your golf performance like the pros.
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