Wayne, We are kindred spirits. The last dozen or so rounds here, have been without caddy and without a yardage book.
Using landmarks is my preferred gauge. On our treeless course, it's amazing how few landmarks are needed to judge what ballpark one is in.

Getting fooled is an added joy to using one's eye. It teaches to understand where the fault in thinking ocurred. Using a rangefinde would eliminate that education.

Nothing more rewarding to me than eyeballing a shot...hitting it successfully...and then finding out your "internal" yardage guess was real close...

Tom:

Sorry I wasn't there for you.  I guess I wasn't granted posting rights at the time.

What I find so useful about range finders is their ability to help with carry distances (of fairway bunkers, etc.) without having to go to the yardage book or do the math.  You stand on the tee, you laser the front lip of the bunker and then you bomb it over the top of it.

If you hit it in the rough, so what?  You get your range finder out, you laser the front of the green and then you gouge it out.  They're quite useful.

This is one argument I'll never understand.  

The purists hate yardages, but they still have 14 clubs in the bag.  Why not just go out with 2, a club to hit through the green and your putter?  If you're so enamoured with being a "feel" player, learn to swipe your 5 iron around all day.  Having 13 + a putter is proof that you're concerned with yardages.  The only difference is that you eyeball the yardage and the other guy points a little laser gun at the flag for their yardage.....in the end, both will probably be within 7-8 yards of each other.  Only in one case, the decision will happen much sooner.

The other part of the argument is that rangefinders eliminate the ground game.  Bullhonkey.  It's not like just because I know its exactly 183 to the pin, I'm going to laser-guide my iron shot right at the pin.  I'm still going to play the correct shot at hand, whether that's a run up through the front of the green or fly it all the way to the hole.  Just because you have 183 in your head, not all other numbers are smitten.....170 with a few bounces and a roll is still in the game.  

Rangefinders speed the game up.  That's a win-win for everyone.  Nobody complains when someone is out there slapping a persimmon or hickories all over the yard, when in fact they probably slow down a round.

And finally.....most golfers can't hit it exactly 183 on call.  That's a fact.  However, they're still better off than just guessing.  

Rangefinders haven't made golf easier.  They don't help you hit the ball one iota.  They simply give you information that you want, quicker.  On that note, I don't even own one.

Live and let golf.

CPS

Sean:

Please understand I don't use such myself - as I say, for me it would be overkill as damn near every course I play is very well marked, and I don't tend to need exact yardages anyway.  "Around 150" is definitely fine for me whether the exact yardage is 145 or 155.

I just would prefer those playing in front of me to use these rather than endlessly pace things off or puzzle through books.  You can call it "relativistic" (and I'm not sure what that means!), I'd prefer to call it realistic.

TH

Sean:

OK, you intrigued me with your common use of philosophical terms.  So I looked it up, and well...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativism

I guess my stance here is relativistic.

But that doesn't make it either wrong or evil.

Some things are worth taking a stand on... others aren't.  You go ahead and pout - I'll continue to have fun playing the game.  If that makes me the root of all evil, then hello Satan come take me now.

 

The Sand Hills policy is purely that of my host.  And yes, I really believe that he would throw my ass off the property if I brought one.  Strange as it seems, I think my Ballyneal host would probably do the same thing - I also wonder what Rupert's view is of rangefinders as he obviously hates carts.  

From a competitive tournament point of view, I think of rangefinders the same way I think of Pro V1's, and 460 cc drivers, and hybrids. I'm fairly convinced that competitive golf is not better off for having all of this technology (although I'm fine with these things for recreational play).

But everybody I play against will be armed with this technology, and I'd be an idiot not to use it as well. I don't have much of a choice!

I'm the proud owner of a totally state-of-the-art system.

It provides a full and complete stereoscopic image of the golf shot which is then processed and combined with the information contained within a huge database of stored information.

This combined data is then fed through a central processor and allows for minute detailed correction processes to occur prior to the golf shot.

The system is getting a bit old now and is beginning to require some ocular assistance, but otherwise it works pretty well.

It's properly known as ISINGUTS - (pronounced "Eyes'n'Guts"). Works as often as I require.

FBD.

Note- I do not own one of these as I mentioned but I am thinking of it.

To all the naysayers out there

How many of you take the 30 seconds to look at the sprinkler heads when they are marked and either pace or estimate how far your ball is from said marker?

How many of you purchase and look at course guides when you visit a new course?

To those of you who never do so well then very good.  To those who ever use yardage and perhaps hold up play doing so then you are being a bit self righteous and hypocritical.

Geoff: I am by no means rigid in my thinking on this subject and I too am seriously considering purchasing a range finder.  The question to me is if it would cause you to become too mechanical in your thinking when you are evaluating a shot. I would compare it to riding in a cart versus walking.  You hit your shot, jump into your cart, bs with your friend you are riding with, get to your ball and hit it - I find that if you're walking, you might be talking to your friend but you are looking at the shot you are going to be playing and I usually find a sprinklerhead short of my ball and pace off from there which cuts down the amount of time it takes to be ready to play.  I will say this, I do find it very helpful when sprinklers are marked to the front, middle and back.

Note- I do not own one of these as I mentioned but I am thinking of it.

To all the naysayers out there

How many of you take the 30 seconds to look at the sprinkler heads when they are marked and either pace or estimate how far your ball is from said marker?

How many of you purchase and look at course guides when you visit a new course?

To those of you who never do so well then very good.  To those who ever use yardage and perhaps hold up play doing so then you are being a bit self righteous and hypocritical.

Geoffrey,
Since when was there anything wrong with being self-righteous and hypocritical on this site?  I thought it was a requirement for being here!

BTW, I will admit (grudgingly, Huckaby, grudgingly!) that to this point rangefinders haven't slowed play at my club.

My objection is just that you look like a wuss using one.  Golf suffers enough from that already without spending a couple of hundred extra bucks to look even wussier.

So be a man!  Pace off your yardage like God intended; that's why you have two feet and took arithmetic!