[A.G._Crockett]

Tom Huckaby,
I was wrong.  You were right.

After the USGA legalized rangefinders, I bitched and moaned about pace of play and purity and so forth.  Now, a year or so later, I must admit that I see no reason to believe that rangefinders have made things slower at all.  In fact, used properly, they may actually improve pace of play slightly since players using them don't pace off yardage.  They point, shoot, and play, and the process takes less than 15 sec. if done properly, which most people willing to invest several hundred dollars in their golf game do.

As to purity, I've put that behind me as well, and can't now see much difference between a rangefinder, distances on sprinkler heads, 150 markers, 460 drivers, GoreTex, and so on.  It's just another technology.

I have a little over $300 in pro shop credit at my club that will expire at the end of the year.  I need nothing in the way of clubs, shoes, balls, hats, or shirts.  I am considering buying a rangefinder; I've already demoed one a couple of times, and I actually play a little faster with it, I think.  I even think I become a little more aware of GCA, if that makes sense.

If I DO purchase such a device, I will name it "Tom" or "Huck" in honor of a visionary.  Of course, Tom is still dead wrong about contoured greens favoring bad putters, but that's another story...

Sincerely,
A.G. Crockett

[John Kavanaugh]

15 sec...You guys do not exist in the same time sequence as me.  15 sec rangefinders and 2 hr rounds...Don't ever put a digital clock next to your bed or you might find yourself very dissappointed.

[George Pazin]

John, the 2 hour thing was a bit of an exaggeration to make a point, a tactic you are certainly familiar with. If Garland had gone out and played in 2:15 or 2:30, would you say that completely invalidates his point?

[John Kavanaugh]

25% invalidates a point...I can accept 8% and reward anything under 4%.  A construction rule of thumb.

[Tom Huckaby]

You're a good man, AGC.  And I'll take my credits one and at time, thank you very much.  Some day you'll come around about the greens.  But I am honored in any case.  First a rangefinder, someday a golf course.

 

[George Pazin]

 

You construction guys are slackers - anything over 2% spoilage on a t shirt order and you're losing money.

 

[John Kavanaugh]

I play with a ton of rangefinder misfits and they take at least 12 secs total just finding the thing and putting it up.  It goes something like this.  Think, search, find, aim, focus, focus, focus, declare, think, declare, put up....I will me nice and say 30 sec total for someone good.

[John Kavanaugh]

You construction guys are slackers - anything over 2% spoilage on a t shirt order and you're losing money.

 

When was the last time you built something and it came in less than 8% over?  I'm not talking profit margins here.

[Brent Hutto]

I play with a ton of rangefinder misfits and they take at least 12 secs total just finding the thing and putting it up.  It goes something like this.  Think, search, find, aim, focus, focus, focus, declare, think, declare, put up....I will me nice and say 30 sec total for someone good.

I think your estimate is in the same ballpark as the guys I play with. It isn't 30 seconds of actually staring through the peephole (assuming they have one with "Pinseeker") but there is significant time consumed putting it in and out of its case and searching for it among the junk in the golf cart or bag.

The GPS units are not as accurate or reliable as lasers but they do have the advantage of just sitting there where you can glance at them while you're walking or pulling the club out of the bag. Lasers are great for surveying a course during a practice round if you want to build a pro-style yardage book but that's more work than I need to put in to shoot 90.

[John Kavanaugh]

I have played with both types of people and would come out for Skycaddies over range finders for that exact reason.  I like a Skycaddie clipped to a cart roof.

[Brad Swanson]

Here's the best scenario:

Skycaddie for the short knocker/hacks in the group because they are usually first to their ball to hit their approach and the lower level of accuracy doesn't matter.

Rangefinder for the better/longer player as they can shoot their yardage to the pin, lip of trap to carry, back at the ballwasher next to the tee to see how far they hit their drive while the skycaddie short knock/hack is playing and in effect take zero time towards the pace of play.

There's enough flame fodder above for an entire days worth of GCA fun, so flame away.

Cheers,
Brad

[George Pazin]

You construction guys are slackers - anything over 2% spoilage on a t shirt order and you're losing money.

 

When was the last time you built something and it came in less than 8% over?  I'm not talking profit margins here.

Easy, John, it was a joke. Comparing t shirt printing to construction work of any kind is like comparing links golf courses to parkland golf courses.

(That's another joke.)

[A.G._Crockett]

I made all of these same arguments, but I don't think they hold water for one simple reason.  The players that are slow with a rangefinder would be as slow or slower because they would pace off yardages.  Even if they take 30 sec., which I doubt, you'd have to compare that to the time they WOULD have spent, rather than just add it to the time they spend hitting shots.

I'm declaring that what I thought (and argued) I would see with rangefinders is NOT at all what I have experienced.  Period.

I thought they would fumble/fuss, etc.  What ACTUALLY happens is that they walk/drive to their ball, shoot the pin, pull a club, and hit the shot.  They DO NOT walk back to the 150, up to the 100, across to the nearest sprinkler head, etc.  I was wrong; what else can I say?

[Brent Hutto]

What I maintained a couple years ago still comports with my experience since laser/GPS has entered nigh-universal usage. Any gadget...be it golf cart, three-wheeler, rangefinder, whatever...will typically let the slow player play more slowly still. Unlike Mr. Crockett's experience, I have not found the guys who used to wander around looking for sprinklers to save the time you might think they could by shooting the yardage. They're the same ones who want to shoot it with their laser, then ask if anyone has a GPS because it looks closer than the laser says.

There are some people who either want to or need to or expect to play slowly. Nothing on earth can speed them up (possibly with the exception of getting yelled at) and their reaction to a rangefinder is to use it slowly and inefficiently as well. At my club, they really seem to be in the minority thank goodness. But even a small minority of slowpokes tend to determine the pace of the entire course.

But this thread is focusing on the positive side. If you are a person like me who

a) likes to have lots of information at hand when playing golf and

b) likes to play as fast as practical without running out of breath

then the new gadgets let you play quickly and have accurate yaradages rather than having to choose between slowing down to pace things off versus playing quickly but having to eyeball distances. It's a net win but it still does nothing about slow play which is caused by the minority who play slow because they play slow.

[Kalen Braley]

I've never understood why its so difficult to figure yardages on most golf holes.

There is almost always a 200, 150, and 100 yard plaque or stake on every hole.  Is it that hard to eye ball that you are about 20 yards away from one of the stakes, and then make a small adjustment for wind, uphill/downhill, and pin position??

They do come in handy on long par 4s and par 5s so you know how far it is to clear some hazard or something of that nature....

[Brent Hutto]

There is almost always a 200, 150, and 100 yard plaque or stake on every hole.  Is it that hard to eye ball that you are about 20 yards away from one of the stakes, and then make a small adjustment for wind, uphill/downhill, and pin position??

Depends on if you're talking 200 or 150 or 100, innit?

If I'm somewhere around the 200 plate it's a matter of hitting a fairway wood up toward the green and hoping for the best. From 150 I need to know if I'm inside (hit an iron) or outside (hybrid) that number but I've got good enough judgement to eyeball it.

From 100 it's a different matter. You and Sean can poo-poo this all you want but the fact is I hit my share of pitching wedge and 9-iron shots that go within a yard or two of the distance I mean to hit them. If I'm somewhere inside the 100-yard marker but don't know it it's 85 versus 92 versus 81 yards to the hole, well that matters a lot to me. Why on earth would I want to hit my 85-yard wedge exactly perfect and still end up 25 feet past the hole with an unmakable downhill putt?

My philosophy is that if you want to play without knowing yardages, more power to you. The game would be more relaxing and less time-consuming if everyone could and would play that way. But once you decide that you're going to have a number in mind on every shot, it's silly to be half-assed about it an accept that number being wrong enough to matter several times a round.

[Richard Choi]

 Is it that hard to eye ball that you are about 20 yards away from one of the stakes...

Clearly, your rounds are not as adventuresome as mine

[Kalen Braley]

Brent,

Yes I was referring to yardage markers that show the distance left to the middle of the green.

If i'm anywhere between the 200 and 150 or 150 and 100, I can tell the yardage to within 2-3 yards by looking at the closest marker to me.  Obviously I still have to make adjustments for wind, and pin location, but I have my base to work from.

And if I'm inside the 100 yard marker I can definitly tell the diference between having 85 yards in or 92. In the 60-65 yards range it gets a little more sketchy because there generally are not 50 yard posts.  But by then its all guess work anyways because its just differences in how hard I hit my SW.

Perhaps I'm just unusually keyed into these thing due to my marching band days from high school where we spent hour after hour on the football field studying placement sheets and our position on the field.  And yes, I was very much a band geek in high school, but we did have a really good band.  (For you bay area boys it was James Logan High)  

[Brent Hutto]

Richard makes a good point. I often end up 130 yards from the hole and a heck of a lot more than 20 yards from any yardage stake (150 or otherwise).

Last weekend I hit a tee shot in the woods, tried to chip out and hit a tree, ended up not being able to see the green or the flagstick and playing the ball out of the rough at about a 45-degree angle to what would be the "line of play" for someone doing it the boring way out in the short grass.

My GPS said it was 87 yards to the flag which was in the middle of the green. Ball above my feet, on the upslope of a mound in front of me, tree limbs to go up and over, steeply uphill to the green. That seemed like a perfect number for a 9-iron (normally my 105 yard club) so I swung with confidence and put the ball three feet from the hole.

This is my home course and I've been in those woods before but in all honestly I would have estimated it to be at least 100 yards to the hole and without the GPS would have hit an 8-iron all the way to the back of the green.

[Kalen Braley]

Thats true Brent,

Calculatting yardages gets a little tougher when you are 40 yards wide of the fairway.  But thats when you just bust out the pythagorean theorm in your head to get the yardage  

[Yancey_Beamer]

My experience is that any foresome that uses range finders saves fifteen minutes a round. We have carefully timed this.

[A.G._Crockett]

My experience is that any foresome that uses range finders saves fifteen minutes a round. We have carefully timed this.

This is actually what I was writing about, NOT how well you play w/ a lasar vs. w/o.  I don't think there are very many players who need to know that the pin is 123 instead of 125.  I have just come to believe that using a rangefinder is AT LEAST as fast a way to find out, and faster if used properly.  Huckaby said that all along, and I have come to believe he was right.

Shivas,
I don't think handicaps go down because a player now knows that he is 123 instead of 125.  I DO think that relatively skilled players who figure out exactly how far they hit partial wedges with different clubs and different swings DO get better, and I think rangefinders are an easier way to to that, given the difficulty of pacing exact yardages at a range and the inconvenience/impossibility of hitting multiple balls on the golf course.  I know you understand what I mean.

[Brad Swanson]

I've never understood why its so difficult to figure yardages on most golf holes.

Show me a guy whose handicap went down solely because he got exact yardages from a lazer and I'll show you a complete and utter moron with a room temperature IQ.  

Dave,
   Please accept this room temperature, utter moron's challenge to a match at Lawsonia during the Langford gathering.

Cheers,
Brad

[Bill_McBride]

I'm confused about something.  Didn't the USGA rule that distance-measuring devices were legal for use only when specifically approved for a specific competition by the committee?

If that were the case, such devices would not be approved for daily play for handicap purposes, right?  Is this USGA ruling being overlooked on a regular basis?

[Mike Benham]

My experience is that any foresome that uses range finders saves fifteen minutes a round. We have carefully timed this.

To clarify, I assume you mean a foursome with FOUR  range finders saves 15 minutes a round.

A foursome with 1 range finder will not save 15 minutes a round.

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