GPS And Google On The Golf Course?
I didn’t at first quite follow what this has to do with Google, but I thought the golf part was interesting. Later I read more of Donna Bogatin’s work and I see her points, clearly now … undoubtedly more clearly than Google … I’ll be writing ore on that subject soon. But you can read the complete Google … GPS … Golf blog entry here at ZD Net.
Looking at the technology furnished I can really see that you can triple the price of anything and still sell it to a golfer. S/he will shell out the cash as long as the promise of a stroke or two is saved … and no cost comparison with the non-golf market ever seems to take place.
A large number of golf courses have equipped carts with roof-mount GPS’s … these were a big thing in Japan years ago when I lived there, but the course manager at one large Tokyo area course told me the only real reason he made the investment was to make much more money of “drink girl” sales by virtue of the instant “Press for Service” button in the cart.
No cart-mounted device is going to be inherently as useful as one that a golfer carries on his/her person, because you obviously cant always drive the cart up to the ball. The Shy Caddie seems well designed, if significantly over priced and is certainly a great gift idea, but frankly, I’d go to the sporting goods store and by a much cheaper hiking and camping GPS and plug my own coordinates in by physically walking the course … it would be cheaper, more accurate and I’d have the 
experience of playing another round and the exercise of walking 6 or 7 thousand yards.
But Father’s Day is close at hand, so here’s the Sky Caddie in all its glory:
According to SkyGolf:
No aiming, no missing. You don’t need a clear line of sight or reflective target with the SkyCaddie. Because the targets are pre-programmed, the SkyCaddie eliminates the need to aim through a lens, accidentally hitting the wrong target on a hole, or trying to hit a pin with a laser beam at 200 yards.
More time to focus on your game. Since distances are automatic with the SkyCaddie, you can quickly select the right club and think only about your swing.
Avoid hidden trouble. Get accurate measurements over hills, trees, and obstructions to any target. Play confidently and knock strokes off your game.
Measure the distance of your shots. Learn how far you hit your drive, 5-iron, 9-iron, or wedge with a touch of a button on the SkyCaddie.
Use it on any golf course. With a SkyPlayer membership, you can choose from thousands of available SkyCourses to download to your SkyCaddie. Or you can record the front, center, and back of each green on the courses you play using the built-in SkyCourse Setup module.
Hope you have a great weekend, and do let me know if you already use this tool, if you try it out, or if you use any other GPS aids to golf or other sports. This blog can do no better than supply what readers want to see.