Hello,
After using Garmin golf for 6 months. I wanted to summarize what I feel is necessary to get Garmin up to par with its competitors such as Arccos. I stick with Garmin because I have the hardware and use it for other things, but I would never choose it for golf only with its current limitations:
Of all the items, I’d say adjusting club stats for environmental factors and upgrading the course imagery and planning is what is most behind at this point.
Club Stats:
- Garmin needs a way for users to reset this or select a time period for viewing
- We need the distances adjusted for environmental factors like Arccos does. Not having this makes the averages subject to outliers driven by elevation, wind, etc.
- We should be able to see the dispersion in yards by club to understand accuracy data by club
Course Planning:
- The maps and gps needs to be brought up to modern day times. We should have satellite imagery as an option
- We need the ability to preview a course so we can plan shots. Ideally, our real club data and virtual caddie can be used in preview mode to help us plan aim points etc.
- Allow for note taking by hole to save notes and strategy
- Allow users to do course/condition reviews
User Experience:
- The “leaderboard” in current form is useless. Showing a stack ranking for only a week by net, means nothing. We should show gross scores or even number of holes on the course with birdies achieved similar to the app 18 birdies
- Allow users to share (if they want) their rounds and scorecards so you can comment and engage with other users (again, similar to Grint or 18 birdies)
- Tournaments seem completely unfinished, after the round it just disappears. I’d say either develop this or scrap it.
Performance Stats:
- Should be able to see strokes gained by club and situation. The AI blurbs have good insights with this data, but there is no way to get to that otherwise
- The visual on dispersion is good, but we should be able to see the actual numbers so we can use it and see how it’s trending.
- User should be able to set a time period for the data, especially if they have recently improved or regressed
I love garmin, but it’s sad how far behind they have gone by letting their golf app sit stale. The hardware is winning the race, but the processing of the data and the app experience is probably worst in class.
