I was initially excited to try out the Garmin Approach G80 - to give me real-time, on the driving range, feedback between a swing, impact, ball flight, and analytics! And when I first used the G80 I was encouraged to find some useful data for my irons and woods. But, after a few sessions, the G80 stopped giving numbers - showing only blanks for many of the numerical fields. Sometimes the error would clear upon powering off and powering back up. But add a few more rounds, and that stopped helping.
The #1 rule of a training aid - don’t get in the way - don’t cause the user to spend more time fiddling with the training aid than in actually training. This is where the G80 fails - totally! FAIL. I wish it were not so, but at this point the G80 is just frustrating. Too bad, a shame. And disappointing because I have been a Garmin user for decades, and have too many watches, and other devices like the G80 to remember. But this one, the G80 stands apart to me as a unique failure.
