Skycaddie SG4

[Brent Hutto]

BTW, can anybody help me with the blinking time LCD on my VCR?

I use a piece of Duct Tape (tm) about three inches long.

Exact yardages from GPS are one thing but some things man wasn't meant to know...and the correct time from a tape recorder is apparently one of them.

[RSLivingston_III]

Played Black Sheep a few weeks ago and the required forecaddie wouldn't stop trying to give me yardages. I could have used a three inch piece of duct tape that day.

[Jim Bearden]

This thread is a sad commentary on the game today.  

Ciao

Amen I always wondered how Jack got away with the yardage book issue.

[Marty Bonnar]

Could one of you Skycaddie users please tell me what accuracy the makers claim for the device?

thenkyou,
FBD.

Nobody? Nobody? Bueller? Bueller??? Hmm?

A genuine properly serious technical enquiry once again fails to elicit a response from the experts at GCA. Let's talk about lines instead. I'm about ready to bid my last farewell...

Martin.

[Padraig Dooley]

Martin it's +/- 5 yards.

[Marty Bonnar]

Padraig,
many, many thanks.

I think your evidence requires no more comment...but, despite myself.

My job involves lots of proper landscape surveying and I know that here in the UK you have to carry more than just a basic GPS receiver if you wish to REALLY ACCURATELY plot your position on this globe. In this country you have to access an extra data source which is broadcast from local transmitters which refine the VERY INACCURATE signal from the satellites.

I seriously doubt if a small hand-held device can provide enough DETAILED information for a user to enable that user to decide between a 6 and a 7 iron...

nuffsedd
FBD.

[Brent Hutto]

I'm not sure where Padraig's five yard figure comes from but that's sounds about as far off as I've ever seen mine get. It's typically the same or a yard off from another Skycaddie standing nearby and its repeatability is usually to the same yard but will occasionally be off by two yards if you stand on the same spot two different days.

But every now and then I'm pretty sure on a given day from a given spot mine has been wrong by four or five yards. It is nothing like the big GPS units used for surveying. But about 80-90% of the time it's within a yard or two and 100% of the time (if it's working at all which you can't always take for granted) it's more accurate than my eyeball.

If you want to know how far you are from something, shoot it with a laser. I know of no more accurate and repeatable way to do an ad hoc measurements. But that takes forever if you're aiming at something small or at an oblique angle and the guys I've played with using lasers drive me and everyone else batty trying to hold it pointed at this or that. Just not practical for playing golf IMO.

I wanted something faster than pacing off yardages, reliable and of comparable accuracy to pacing from sprinkler heads and the like. I'd say the Skycaddie is definitely faster, it is not totally reliable (some days it just won't work at all) and the accuracy is about what I need. If it's usually within two yards and always within five that's as accurate as I can hit the ball on my best shots so it's good enough.

This is my last post on the topic so I'll reiterate my own position on use of the Skycaddie. If I'm playing golf to shoot a score or in a meaningful match, I absolutely am going to ascertain the distance of any shot inside 150 or so yards to the best of my ability. Pacing around takes too long to play in under three hours and detailed yardage books aren't generally available. So by glancing at the Skycaddie on my push cart I can see a pretty accurate yardage most of the time and that's a time and effort saver. So I paid too much money for an imperfect solution to my needs.

If my glancing down at my push cart a couple of times per hole ruins the game, then you're using the word "ruins" pretty darned loosely.

[Geoffrey Childs]

Padraig,
many, many thanks.

I think your evidence requires no more comment...but, despite myself.

My job involves lots of proper landscape surveying and I know that here in the UK you have to carry more than just a basic GPS receiver if you wish to REALLY ACCURATELY plot your position on this globe. In this country you have to access an extra data source which is broadcast from local transmitters which refine the VERY INACCURATE signal from the satellites.

I seriously doubt if a small hand-held device can provide enough DETAILED information for a user to enable that user to decide between a 6 and a 7 iron...

nuffsedd
FBD.

Martin

I have no idea where Padrig got his data but it is flat out wrong.  The data are more accurate then typical car navigation systems and closer to military resolution. The conservative number I have been told was +/- 3 yards.  In practice I have not seen more then a yard or so variation from hand held laser measurements.

It is particularly easy to tell a 6 from a 7 iron especially given all the extra information such as front and rear distance of the green as well as any bunker or water hazard yardages both to reach the hazard as well as clearance yardage.  It does so instantaneously and in fact saves time and speeds play.  There is no denying this observation.

Unless you are a total Luddite I find it particularly humorous to hear how this is a sad commentary on the game today. Lots of hypocrites around here.

[Steve Lang]

 

Accuracy Martin,

At WCC, they've correlated most distances with sprinkler head disances on all the courses, which i believe were lasered .. even have our driving range distances on SkyCaddy// have seen two side-by-side SC2's give exact same number>>  i thnk they're as good as calibration.

I think most here are missing applicabilities, use of information.. I love the capability to mark a spot, hit a shot, walk to the result and mark it again to see how far you've hit it..  big reality check some days.

When i know a shot's distance by experience, no big deal.. and I definitely tell folks not to tell me distances, politely.. if i want to know, I'll ask.  nuff said

When I don't know distance, where's the harm?  Most value is when you get to shot and again calibrate how far you went from club-swing used...

p.s.  Ms Sheila bought her SC2 from winnings , pro shop credits.. from playing without aid of SC!  we play slightly faster too..

i think the purists are dead.. or out playing in the fields

[paul cowley]

I love you guys....gotta go...

[Doug Siebert]

Padraig,
many, many thanks.

I think your evidence requires no more comment...but, despite myself.

My job involves lots of proper landscape surveying and I know that here in the UK you have to carry more than just a basic GPS receiver if you wish to REALLY ACCURATELY plot your position on this globe. In this country you have to access an extra data source which is broadcast from local transmitters which refine the VERY INACCURATE signal from the satellites.

I seriously doubt if a small hand-held device can provide enough DETAILED information for a user to enable that user to decide between a 6 and a 7 iron...

nuffsedd
FBD.

Its not so much that the satellites transmit an inaccurate signal as it requires some fairly expensive circuitry to get very accurate results.  At a rough approximation, the higher the precision of its internal clock, the higher the accuracy it can obtain, but making truly accurate clocks is not cheap.  The GPS satellites all have atomic clocks onboard and are so sensitive it is necessary to correct for the relativistic effects of their speed of orbit.  Unfortunately carrying an atomic clock around with you in an affordable and lightweight package is still beyond our ability.

Another alternative is differential GPS which uses a second receiver that's left in the same position over some time to allow it to average out its positioning errors as multiple satellites pass overhead and other receivers in the area can communicate with it to benefit from its increased accuracy (and make an assumption that communication with it is instaneous, which is "good enough" for light speed over a mere few hundred meters)

It sounds like this is what you are using for your surveying.  I have seen "survey grade" GPS units that supposedly went for something like $20,000 USD with some sort of converged accuracy system where you dialed in how accurate you needed it to be, and it gave you an estimated time of how long you had to wait before this was met; it could use differential GPS as an add-on to reduce this wait time.

A garden variety GPS ought to be able to get within few yards most of the time these days, they are getting more accurate all the time.  The problem is there will be occasional periods when it can only see three satellites AND none of those are in optimal position, which can temporarily reduce accuracy quite a bit.  I've seen some GPS units that will tell you how many satellites it can see at a given moment and have a bar like your cell phone's antenna bar to tell you how accurate it believes its current reading to be.

Hopefully GPS units intended for golf don't do this -- I'd hate to see waiting for all bars to appear before selecting a club become part of someone's preshot routine!

[Padraig Dooley]

I know that I had information on the accuracy of the skycaddie, I went looking for it but couldn't find it.

From use of the skycaddie, the majority of the time it is reasonably accurate, within 1 or 2 yards of a bushnell or yardage chart, but there is the odd occasion when it is 7-10 yards out.

How important is this? Not important for long shots, there are very few people in the world who are that accurate. For shorter shots 120 yards and in, it's a bit more important.

It's not really a deal breaker, ease of use versus the odd bad yardage.