GPS for Golf and Geocaching

[drako365]

I was looking for a hand held that would do both. Do they (or does one) exist?

 

Thank you

[+ecanderson]

I was looking for a hand held that would do both. Do they (or does one) exist?

 

Thank you

Nope. The good golf units are VERY specific to golf both in terms of firmware and mapping. Unless someone buries a cache in the fairway bunker on the 16th, you won't be finding any caches with one of those.

[+reg3]

I have used my old Magellan Sportrak Map to mark the center of greens before. You can mark the water hazards or bunkers too, if you want to get carried away. I will do the same with my new Oregon.

[+ecanderson]

I have used my old Magellan Sportrak Map to mark the center of greens before. You can mark the water hazards or bunkers too, if you want to get carried away. I will do the same with my new Oregon.

That requires mapping for any golf course you might want to play vs. having the maps made for you and ready for download by the GPS manufacturer. Also, the display on the golf-specific units is much more helpful. While Birdseye images from Garmin can help, the better golf units draw a clearer schematic of the hole indicating position to each of the features of interest (especially the hazards that eat balls). Just using waypoints, it can be hard to distinguish one bunker for another.

 

When I got my first handheld, it was before all of the SkyCaddy and other hardware ever hit the market. I did some mapping of my local course, but after a couple of holes, decided to give that up and just mark for the front and back of the greens.

 

As you say, it is possible to mark the position of the center of the green, and that's easy to do and often better than nothing, but the golf-specific units do a heck of a lot more. Early on, it was tough to get maps of a couple of my favorite courses, but they've now got just about everything mapped down to the local cow pasture, making using these things really easy.

[dr_barger]

There's a free online tool available that you can use to create golf maps for any of the Garmin handhelds. You can make the display show as much detail as you want- complete with fairways, greens, sand traps, water, or as simple as pin position. All you have to do is trace shapes on a Google map. It's easy.

 

There are several courses available for free download that others have created & posted. I've made 60 courses around central Ohio. I'm glad to help anyone interested in trying it...

 

Check it out at:

http://users.wowway.com/~don_barger/Map-page.html

 

Don

Edited December 1, 2010 by dr_barger

[+Redwoods Mtn Biker]

Sounds like a good case for getting a smartphone.

[+ecanderson]

Took a look at one of the maps of one of the 'local' courses .. nice work by somebody. However, while I follow the need for the schematic map of the course, how are you using a Garmin handheld to measure the distance from current position to the various features? You'd need to follow up on the maps with a series of waypoints or something so that you can know your distance to each. There's no "ruler" function on a Garmin handheld to measure distance between map points (that I've ever seen). So how are the maps to be used?

 

Got a chuckle out of the fact that the greens are shown as "marsh land". I've felt that way more than once.

Edited December 1, 2010 by ecanderson

[dr_barger]

I'm using a Garmin Etrex Vista Hcx. All you have to do is "pan" the cursor to whatever you want to measure. The display will show the distance from your current position in the upper-right of the display.

 

Here's a screenshot taken from my older Vista:

http://users.wowway.com/~don_barger/operation.html

 

And just for fun, here's what it looks like on the Nuvi:

http://users.wowway.com/~don_barger/nuvi-software.html

 

I tried to find different colors & textures to differentiate fairways and greens on the display of the GPS. Also wanted map items that would show up correctly regardless of how a person would "draw" them. "Marsh land" will show up on top of a fairway with a different color. Water shows up on top of land. "Sand" outlines on top of everything else. Beyond that, there's a variable in MapSource called "Draw Priority" that you can set for the golf maps to get them to display on top of navigation maps. So I have all my golf maps loaded along with regular street maps on the GPS.

 

Don

[+ecanderson]

Head scratching ... I can do that on my old Summit HC, but guess I need to figure out how to do it on the Oregon where the map really shows up well.

[dr_barger]

I haven't tried the Oregon for measuring distance, but I thought that you just tap the screen and the distance to that point pops up at the top of the page?

[+team scrunchy]

If you have a gps enabled smart phone the best free golfing app is freecaddie which can be obtained at freecaddie.com. You can download course data automatically for any course based on current postion. Its free. There is also a paid version for about $10. All you need is a smart phone. I use it on my old blackjack II. Check it out.

[pratzert]

I had wondered if the Golf Course maps that Garmin uses were compatible on their other HH GPS Units other than the "Approach" units.

 

But when I went on the Garmin website and looked at the product compatibility with the Golf Approach map updates, it only listed the Approach 3 & 5 units.

 

As mentioned earlier, it would seem it's a specific/specialized Firmware that's needed to use the Golf maps.

 

I wonder if it's possible to push that special golf firmware onto any other Garmin HandHelds ?

Edited December 3, 2010 by pratzert

[dr_barger]

I haven't looked at the Approach units up close- they sure look like the Oregon or the Dakota in the brochures.

Wouldn't want to risk turning my GPS into a brick by loading incompatable software, though. I haven't heard of anyone that's done this successfully (and no one's admitted to an unsuccessful attempt).

 

I also used my hiking GPS as a golf tool by marking waypoints on the green. As helpful as that is, what I find most useful is knowing the distance to layup or carry hazards or knowing the best distance to drive into a dogleg. -So I draw a lot of detail into the golf maps that I make. Especially if I'm going to play a course that I haven't played before.

 

One more feature of the online mapping tool- you can plan your shots for a course. Just click a point on the tee box, one in the fairway, and one on the green. The yardages of each shot is listed on the right hand side of the screen. Then you can drag the points around to suit your game and the yardage display updates after you move the points.

 

Don

[+GrateBear]

If someone comes up with the GPSr that locates the ball I just sliced 100' into the woods, I'm all for it