Approach R50 - Recent Threads

Version 5.0 Broken

Etewa — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 15:32:32 GMT

The unit upgraded to version 5.0 and the ability to connect to 3rd party software does not display any options.

When the device is on, I navigate to Connect option and select. The screen does not show any options including GSPro, Awesome golf, etc ..

I tried restarting, shutting down and then starting. I reset my network connections and downloaded courses for Tee Hero. Same issue

Range Targets

Dan_Robbo — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 16:57:11 GMT

Has anyone got the range targets to work? I have selected the designated distance on the new update which i am wanting to play to and was expecting a distance circle a set distance down the range but doesn't seem to display anything.

3rd party software still not populating.

8912729 — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 15:30:21 GMT

Called garmin support and started a resolve, this morning still no luck. Tried restarting, shutting down, logging out all with no success. Any help will be appreciated. Wondering if doing a factory reset would solve it but don’t want to lose anything.

Twovision nx motion plate usage

3639518 — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 17:18:01 GMT

Is there anyway to use the Twovision NX motion plate mats with the R50?

Can’t connect to 3rd party software after update

Kolchak357 — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 18:03:54 GMT

I ran the update today. Seemed to download ok. Played 9 holes in Home Tee Hero, and then hit some balls on the practice range to try some of the new update features. All looked and worked well.
Then figured I’d play 9 holes on Awesome Golf. But when I clicked on the connect screen it was blank (see below). I shut down and restarted the R50 a couple times, but that didn’t help. Anyone else having this issue, or is it just my machine?

New update 03/09/26

HoboGTS — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 08:17:48 GMT

I see Garmin have release a new update in the past few hours, but only to 20% of owners ... I've just tried to update my unit and there is no update for me, so what is the reason for the 20% ?

Approach R50 System Software Version 5.0.0 / GLM Version 4.3.0

Garmin-Brooks — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 20:32:56 GMT

Hello Approach R50 users,

We are currently releasing system software version 5.0.0, and GLM version 4.3.0. This update is currently available to 50% of users.

Changes:

Added ability to chip on greens or putt when close to greens in Home Tee Hero.
Added ability to customize auto-putt distances in Home Tee Hero.
Added ability to hide shots from the shot list.
Added ability to move position on tee-pad in Home Tee Hero.
Added Bag Mapping mode for users to evaluate and track their average distance for each club.
Added distance control and trajectory views for shots.
Added Forward Tees support with selectable tee options and scorecard integration.
Added new scoring formats including Match Play, Skins, and Stableford.
Added support for new club types (Approach Wedge, Approach Wedge Hybrid, Mini Driver).
Added support for HTH/practice sessions while connected to partner services on R50.
Added target distance setting in Driving Range.
Added the ability to configure shot data display options in HTH On Course Practice sessions.
Bug fixes and performance improvements.
Enhanced Driving Range overhead view and user experience.
Increased multiplayer support to up to 8 players.
Updated club color display.

All 5 tee choices play as tips, Phoenix Golf Resort (Dragon Course, Vietnam)

Kolchak357 — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 20:23:52 GMT

I chose to play from the gold tees. You can see on the mini map that it should be 435 yards, but to the right it shows 590 yards. Definitely not correct. Here is also a pic from the tee view and it is 590 yards. I checked all 5 tee choices and they all play exactly the same yardage. They all play like the black tees.
Garmin, please fix this. Phoenix Golf Resort (Dragon Course, Vietnam) looked really good, even with my cheap projector. A course at 7,400 yards doesn’t work for an old guy like me.

Can we get less similar colors for clubs next to each other in a range session?

Kolchak357 — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 01:34:30 GMT

Here is a 6 iron and a 7 iron. It’s pretty obvious what the problem is here. The colors are almost exactly the same. Is there a way for me to custom select a color for each club, or is this an issue Garmin will need to address? I sent an email about this to Garmin support ages ago, but of course I never heard back.

When I turn on my R50 it opens with the Garmin logo and then a white box pops up and says shutting down. I tried holding down the power button for 60 seconds. Unplugging, cleaning power cord terminals. Any advice?

3829925 — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 00:11:27 GMT

See subject

Feature Request - Add Favorite Courses

2185161 — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 13:00:19 GMT

The Garmin Approach R50 has over 43k courses that can be downloaded and I absolutely love it, but..... The "recently played" list only handles a small number of courses and when I want to go back to a course that I thought was wonderful, it is gone from my list.

I would LOVE to see a Favorites section added to let us save those special courses.

Is the R50 Dead?

troymosley — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 18:31:28 GMT

It’s been months since the last update. Replies are generic auto generated. I see so much potential with this product and no action. Is there even a team assigned to the R50 anymore? Did I buy a 5k machine that is going extinct in less than a year? @garmin what’s the deal, can you communicate please.

Finished my 100th round

5577833 — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 21:28:54 GMT

Hey Garnin I just finished my 100th round with pebble beach. Great experience and I have materially gotten better using the r50.

I had asked this before, but I would love to export this data out some way to get an analysis of how I am doing and where I have made improvements and where I need to work on it. The product is awesome, and I think has such potential compared to the market.

badges wouor also be cool..

Touchscreen unresponsive

3353171 — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 22:56:17 GMT

Hi.
Has anyone had any issues where the unit starts up, but the touchscreen is completely unresponsive?

(Old) Feature Request- Game and Practice Mode Options (Again, I know everyone is asking)

otis — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 21:04:02 GMT

Just doing my 3 month check in to see if there's been any movement on the continuous requests to add simple game and practice mode options. I'd personally really like a Trackman Combine type of feature to test my current progress and keep trying to improve, but as I scroll through the forums over the last 18 months I've seen a lot of other simple requests as well for party games like closest to the pin, practice options (like being able to place the ball wherever you'd like on the map) or different scramble options for HTH. Each of these is seemingly quite minor.

I just don't understand why NONE of this has been implemented for customers that have paid over $5,000 for a device and are continuing to pay a subscription. ***, sell me a DLC for a one-time cost to pay someone to do the (simple) programming based on what already exists. I honestly can't believe it's taken this long and none of this has been done. I've got Garmin watches, two launch monitors, the most expensive rangefinder, etc, but it feels like this community (the most expensive device) is left to exist with just the bare minimum of bug fixes until maybe the next big device is released which will maybe get some of these features. Is there anything to look forward to here regarding improvements and features?

Bending over constantly is a deal breaker.

6150621 — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 17:16:01 GMT

Great unit otherwise, but after just one session and bending over after just about every shot to adjust shot target location, etc, I will return it.

Every other launch monitor on the market, including Garmin's own r10 has the ability to control it in a standing position using an iphone or ipad or the like.

Surprised and disappointed with such an expensive unit that you can't control it in a standing position in any way.

Are there plans to fix this problem? If not, why? Seems like a stupid simple thing to do in 2026.

Saved practice session not appearing in golf app

Country Gentleman — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 07:18:32 GMT

Yesterday I saved a practice session on the R50. Its still there. Since then I have connected the R50 to the same wifi network as my phone and verified it has internet and I have tethered it to my phone. All while the gamin connect and golf app are open on my phone with the same internet connection. The R50 and the phone are signed into the same garmin account. The R50 is running the lates softwear.

The practice session does not appear on the garmin golf app.

Today I did another practice session while connected to the internet and it has uploaded to the Garmin Golf app, but yesterday's session it still not.

I need to get the session data spreadsheet onto my computer.

Low wedge spin numbers

3124356 — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 19:01:28 GMT

I can't seem to get any wedge below pitching wedge to read the proper spin number. Or it just starts reading under 4000 for all of the wedges. I have tried to raise a unit, put a line in my ball, move it back in the hitting zone. I'm not sure what else I should do. It reads every other Club fine, and even reads all the other numbers right when I hit a wedge minus the spin number. I have updated it and everything as well so I don't really know what the issue is.

Feature Request – Driving Range Statistics Table

9389239 — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 16:21:14 GMT

The Driving Range statistics table would be much more useful if:

The “Customize Table” column order could be saved as the default for all future practice sessions instead of resetting for every new activity.
The column header row does not remain frozen while scrolling through shots. Currently, after scrolling down and horizontally, there is no way to tell which statistic is being viewed because the headers have scrolled off the screen.

allocating 4 players to same members tees

GTFa — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 17:43:46 GMT

Garmin Approach R50: When I try and play Augusta National on HTH with 4 players I cannot allocate all 4 to the members tees. It seems that the last name to be added is always left on the Masters tees. This is not very helpful.

has anyone been able to do this?

CSV export missing targets (range), no targets in standard range sessions, on-course practice not exported + surface data request

3788189 — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 19:11:29 GMT

Hi all,

I’ve been using my Approach R50 heavily for structured range practice and exporting the session CSVs from the Garmin Golf app to do my own analysis. A few things I’ve run into that I think would make the R50 significantly more useful — a mix of what looks like a bug and some feature requests.

1. Target distance isn’t exported for range sessions (looks like a bug)

When I set a target for a range session, the target never makes it into the exported CSV. The export has the columns for it — in my locale they’re Målcarry (target carry) and Mål för totalt avstånd (target total distance) — but they’re empty on every single shot, even in sessions where I definitely had a target set.

I checked two full sessions:

• Driver session, 20 shots — target columns empty on all 20

• 8-iron session, 30 shots — target columns empty on all 30

Since the columns already exist in the export schema, it feels like the value just isn’t being written. It’d be great to have this fixed so the target I practiced to is actually recorded.

2. Can’t set a target on standard range sessions at all

Related to the above: as far as I can tell, you can only attach a target in certain modes, not on a plain/standard range session. I’d love to be able to set a target distance on any range session so I can practice to a number and have it scored/recorded. Even if #1 is fixed, it doesn’t help if I can’t set the target in the first place.

3. On-course practice doesn’t export

Shots I hit in on-course / practice-round contexts don’t come out in the CSV export at all. I’d really like these included in the export like range shots are — it’s some of the most valuable data (real targets, real lies) and right now it’s stuck on the device/app.

4. Feature request: record the surface

Two surface fields would make on-course and range data far richer:

• Surface the shot was hit from (tee / fairway / rough / bunker / mat, etc.)

• Surface the ball came to rest / landed on (green / fairway / rough / etc.)

This is exactly the kind of context that turns raw launch data into strokes-gained-style insight, and the R50 already knows a lot about the shot — capturing lie/landing surface (even as a manual tag) would be a big step up.

For context, I’m building my own analytics on top of the exports, so anything that makes the CSV more complete directly helps. Happy to share sample files or more detail if it’s useful.

Thanks!

Feature request: measurable practice modes on the R50 — or an SDK so we can build them ourselves

3788189 — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 07:43:14 GMT

Hi all (and hopefully some Garmin folks),

I've been using my Approach R50 a lot, and the hardware is genuinely excellent — the data quality is there. What I keep wishing for is a way to make practice measurable, the way the on-course numbers are. Right now the range/practice side feels like hitting balls rather than training with feedback.

Feature request — structured practice / challenge modes:

- Closest to Pin — random target distances, scored by proximity, tracked over time.

- Strokes Gained practice — hit to targets and see strokes-gained-style feedback vs. a baseline, so you know whether your wedges or mid-irons are actually costing you shots.

- Distance ladder / gapping — climb through targets and confirm your real carry gaps between clubs.

- Dispersion tests — a fixed number of shots, then carry/side spread stats, so you can see consistency improve session to session.

Modes like these would turn the R50 from a great measuring device into a great training device.

The alternative I'd love even more — a developer SDK / local API:

I understand dedicated software features have to be prioritized and may not be near-term. So as an alternative (or in addition), would Garmin consider an official developer SDK or documented local API for the R50 — a way for third-party/community apps to receive shot data locally, similar to how the existing GSPro/E6/Awesome Golf integrations work?

I'm a software developer and I've already prototyped a phone-friendly practice app with exactly these drills; the only thing blocking me from using it with real R50 data is the lack of a supported local data feed. Even a GSPro OpenConnect–style output, or access under a developer program/NDA, would let the community build the training features many of us are asking for — without Garmin having to build them all in-house.

Is there any existing developer/partner path for the R50, or interest in one? Happy to work within whatever official channels or agreements are required.

Thanks for reading — curious whether other R50 owners want the same thing.

The Approach R50 displays data from golf clubs without requiring stickers attached to the clubs./ software version 4.90 app version 4.20

5485341 — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 06:17:38 GMT

Plase comfirm me.

Best Regards,drive.google.com/.../view

Multi-player Play

1446638 — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 18:10:21 GMT

Please add scramble and best best play options. Thank you!!

#garmin4life

“This Weeks Tournament” error message: “something went wrong” is denying access even after restarting device

1114493 — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 02:08:02 GMT

Is anyone else experiencing “Something went wrong” error message for weekly tournament mode?

steps I took:

restarted three times
shutdown and restarted

Outcome:

”Something went wrong” message with “please try again later”