Golfing with the Band Review

golfingasu

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Got a chance to play golf with the new Microsoft band tile(or app) today. Once you find and load your course to the band you no longer need your phone. I loaded my course the night before. When I got in my cart today all I had to do was start the golf app on my Band.
Yardage: The band only tells you yardage if you push the action button but was pretty quick to load and give yardage. In fact I began pushing the button when I stopped the cart and when I got out and by my clubs would look and the yardage was there. This keeps the battery from running down by constantly displaying yardage. The yardage seems spot on. In fact it rained and was very cloudy but the yardage seemed to still be very accurate. In fact it seemed better than yardage I get from golf shot on my iPhone.

Shot tracking:
The Band keeps track of every shot you take. For full shots, chips, and long putts it seems to do a great job. Where it lacks of course is short putts and tap ins. Part of this might be my fault I will put tap ins with my right hand only and I wear my band on the left. It is very easy to correct by swiping left or right to correct the score. Very impressed with this feature didn't seem to count any practice strokes as shots. Only problem I saw was one or twice I was practicing my stroke away from the hole and it seemed to record a stroke for those times. Once you step on the next tee box you will get a vibration and the hole info will pull up as well as score for last hole.

Analytics:

More will be done with this once Taylor made gets the myround pro up and running. Right now it tracks pace per hole and round. Heart rate per hole and average for round. Steps and calories are also tracked. Once my round pro is up and running you will be able to track shot distance as well as location of each shot.

Overall:
Very impressed excited to see what is added once the my round pro from Taylor made is added. I was able to play 16 holes and it did not seem to overwhelm the battery. I have tried golfshot and golf card with pebble(Apple watch). With the pebble(Apple watch) you have to have your phone with you at all times for yardage to be correct. Also at the end of the round my iPhone battery would be dead. I would constantly have to refresh my iPhone to get good yardages. With the band just a touch of the action button and a few seconds later I received very accurate yardage front, back and middle. No phone required. Overall it's very easy to use and quite impressive for a first attempt from a new product.
Pros:
Easy to use
Shot tracking
Heart rate tracking
Don't have to use your phone
Analytics (we will have to wait to see how good this is)
Good yardages
Cons:
You have to push button to get yardage.
Not all putts counted accurately
Not all courses available. But you can request courses.
Only US And UK courses
 

Carl Anderson

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I played a round with it yesterday, and I can't add or remove anything from this review. It is spot on.

I do wish it had more courses to start. I also would like to try it walking rather than riding.
 

golfingasu

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I played a round with it yesterday, and I can't add or remove anything from this review. It is spot on.

I do wish it had more courses to start. I also would like to try it walking rather than riding.
I bet walking the course would add extra benefits with the band. Hard for me to walk this time of year if I can drive off the path I would rather drive. Love my cart
 

golfingasu

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For those who don't see there course listed, they seem to be adding courses daily. Only 1 of 3 courses in my town at launch. They have already added a second course. Anyone else noticed added courses?
 

Brian Smith27

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Thank you for an excellent review.
I walk my course, I also get steps and a count of the calories I use.
I agree with the comments reference small putts and tap ins.
It would be nice if you could put your handicap into the system. This may come with the TaylorMade app.
 

gbafam

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Great review, and very helpful.

Does anyone know when the Taylormade website will be up and full shot tracking (by club) will be available?
 

golfingasu

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Great review, and very helpful.

Does anyone know when the Taylormade website will be up and full shot tracking (by club) will be available?
Haven't heard. Looks like they are hard at work adding courses right now. When the app first came out only 99 courses in Scotland now up to 216 courses.
 

gbafam

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I've noticed the additional courses from first release as well; press coverage of the announcement seems to auger for earlier, rather than later, better functionality. Again, great review. I hope to try it out in greater detail in the next week and will supply observations then.
 

bigskytool

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Great review. I have used it 4 times and love it. I also use GolfShot and have a Bushnell range finder. Yardage is very accurate. As far as tap in putts are concerned I have experienced the same thing but adding a stroke is simple. The only issue I have had is that sometimes it took longer to recognize I was on the next hole/tee box and I did not check to make sure. So as I was playing the hole I noticed that not all of my strokes were counted. This has happened for a few holes out the 4 rounds. However, I also realized that it vibrates once it detects you are on the next hole/tee box so if I don't feel the vibration I just manually advance it to the next hole.

The one thing I love about Golf Shot is that it tracks your stats (if you spend the time to enter them). The real benefit for Golfing with the Band will be when Taylor Made gets the app finished and all the stats will done without my input. This will be awesome!
 

gbafam

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I agree with you about golf shot and I'm hoping taylormade delivers on its promise here. This could be, and I stress could be, an inexpensive, successful, alternative to the much more expensive alternatives (game shot, arcos, etc).
 

kleine98

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I golfed with the band yesterday and it didn't keep track of one single swing for the whole round. No idea why. It was able to tell me that I was at the tee box, but no shot tracking at all. Maybe my band is not working or something - I don't know. Was a real bummer for my first round with the band. Other than that yardages were great, assigning the score at the end of the hole was easy enough.
 

golfingasu

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That should only happen if the gps doesn't get locked.
Did your band ever show gps locked?
Do you have gps turned off for some reason
 

golfingasu

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Dang - nevermind. I just went into the app and saw an "Auto-shot" option that was off. Now i'm bummed with myself!!!
I have had problems if gps didn't lock. Didn't know you could turn off auto-shot. That's good to know. There have been several times that I wanted to play just a couple of times and not keep score.
 

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