When on green, why does S40 default to par level score?

Garmin does have a solution for this with their Auto Score feature when you add CT10's at least to your putter.  I personally have one on the PW, SW, and putter and the score shown is usually correct.  Put them on all your clubs and you get full automatic club tracking as well.  There still is the occasional false positive, or missed hit, but those are becoming more and more rare with every fw update.

Unfortunately, without the CT10's, there are several options for what to put for the score, but none really better than another.  Zero, fairway hits, par, fairway hits + 2, etc.  Defaulting to par, on average, reduces the number of buttons you need to press and likely provides the least confusion.

The problem is there isn't enough accuracy for putter detection without the CT10's.  So they have recorded the fairway shots, but they have little confidence in the accuracy of the putts.  Without that info, ther preferred score to be shown is personal.  Your choice may not be someone else's choice.  They really can't win here so it seems they chose to use the number that will be most consistent.  I really think this is a technology issue rather than trying to upsell the CT10's.

You can get the fairway hits by bringing up the "last shot" menu.  I agree it'd be nice if they gave some indication on the scorecard as to what the watch thinks is the fairway hits, without having to bring up this menu.

I have to add, though, that adding a CT10 to your putter really is nice as it then counts pretty much all your hits. I think there are too many technical challenges to achieve this without CT10's.  I'm even seeing 6" tap in putts counted.  Sounds like you would appreciate this. 

I have the same experience - changed from TomTom Golfer 2 to S40 two weeks ago. I have CT10 on all clubs but there are still some wrong things on counting strokes. I can understand that it is impossible to automate this 100% and Garmin should know this also. But knowing this and then make it so complicate or even impossible for the player to correct wrong result is a shame. With CT10 you even don´t see at the end of a hole what the watch has scored (you have to check the 'Scorecard' evertime. When you miss the 'Last shot' option, then the whole score card is for trash can, because if you choose Stableford then you can´t change anything later, even not online!!! Stableford counting would be great but I have to go back to Stroke play because of lazy programmers. I really hope they find the time to complete the software development and make it on top a bit more userfriendly.

A tip for Garmin: look at TomTom Golfer 2 and see how easy scoring should be!!!

I agree. Keeping track of scoring/strokes is much better on the TomTom golfer 2. You get vibration feedback on every registered shot (and cancel it if necessary with one click) or add a stroke with one click.

With  the Garmin S40 I have to count myself.

This is not how it's supposed to be.

Marco. 

Why is no one from Garmin replying to this question? Isn't that somehow (also) the reason for official product forums?

I believe Garmin does generally monitor these forums, but the forums seem to be more about user to user contact and conversations.  The forums are definitely not a replacement for customer support. If you have a real problem, you should directly contact Garmin's support lines. 

I don't really have an answer for you, though, with things like this that aren't bugs, but merely feature requests.  You could always trying contacting Garmin support and asking what they suggest.

I don't think the lack of putting accuracy is what OP has an issue with.

The issue is that throughout my approach to the green my S40 is tracking every shot, successfully. I tell it which club I used for each shot.

As soon as the watch detects that I am at the green it stops shot tracking and just asks me to enter the total for the round. I can easily increment this for each putt that I take. The actual problem is no matter how many shots I have taken to reach that green, the starting number of shots when I reach the green will always be par.

Why can the watch not say "Hey, I know this is a par 4, but I also know that you've just taken 7 shots to reach the green, so I'll set the starting point at this, and all you need to do is increment it for each putt you take."

Instead it just ignores the fact that it has tracked 7 shots, and says "This is a par 4, so I'll just assume you took 4 shots unless you tell me otherwise. Now go recount all the shots you've done. I already know, but I ain't telling you"

exactly my/the probem! I can't believe this is not a standard feature....