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Golf on the 945

joqaelyzm
over 3 years ago

I am a tri-athlete that also uses the 945 to golf.

I am struggling both with the functionality of what to click and when to click it in order to have shots measured, as well as the consistency of whether it picks up the shot. At the beginning of the round, just prior to driving the ball, I select "measure shot". The watch then responds with a message saying "swing to start measuring". I then hit the ball. Out of 18 holes today only 3 recorded a drive, despite me clicking "measure shot" just prior to each drive. I wear the watch on my lead wrist, and I hit the ball well enough (drive about 250) it should register the impact.

Sometimes after using "measure shot" and hitting the ball, it will immediately give a measurement readout on the screen, and as I drive to wahere the ball landed that number will increase up until I reach that spot and can see how far I hit it. Other times (and more often than not) it gives zero response after hitting the ball, but then once I get up there and tell it to measure the next one then it gives me the distance on the previous one. For irons and hybrids it seems to pick up about 50% of these shots in this way. And around the green it gets about 20% of pitches and chips.

Do I need to click "measure shot" prior to every shot? If so, do I need to hit the ball before the "swing to start measuring" message leaves the screen?

Am I doing something wrong to cause it not to register so many drives? Of all the shots that one has the worst percentage of shots it picks up, despite it being the one with the largest impact. On long puts where it doesn't know I'm on the green it will sometimes even pick up a putter stroke. So I can't see a reason not to pick up a drive.

I use this watch on the run, in the pool, and on the bike as well. I have zero issues with it performing in any other environment. I've had no issues with its internal accelerometer or GPS unit. I suspect the watch is in perfect working order. What can I be doing wrong?

Does my watch have the ability to let me select which club I hit?

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Why bother with selecting "Measure shot" every time? If you start a golf activity, and suggest it to keep score you will get the distances for all of your shots. The watch has an inbuilt Autoshot feature, measuring the gps-location of where you strike the ball and then calculate the distance between the two points. I've found that for chip-shots or putts there is no measurement, but I think that's acceptable - for my tee-shots I always get a result.

    After you've finished your golf-activity, and if keeping score, you will get a scorecard with the information about distances between shots. The clubs you've used you need to keep track of yourself, but if you are mainly interested in your driving distance you probably know which holes you use the driver. And you have the possibility of adding that information in Garmin Connect afterwards.

    You can also buy their sensors - https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/605172/pn/010-01994-00 - which will give you the club information automatically for each stroke, including putts and chips. But it's expensive.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to olni65

    In today's match I told it to measure shot just at the start of the round. In 18 holes it registered zero drives, 3 hybrid shots, and a chip (maybe 20 yards). I wear it tightly on my lead wrist. 

    The fact that it picks up random shots, without favoring harder hit ones, makes me wonder what mechanism it's using to register the shot. Is it the impact alone? Is it the swing pattern (similar to knowing my swim stroke in the pool, backstroke vs freestyle, etc.)? If it were waiting on just a strong impact, then it should definitely register a driver shot over any chip. 

    I should have intentionally chunked a few drive shots to see if it picks it up. Can't get much more impactful than that. 

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to joqaelyzm

    OK, now I'm just clutching at straws here since it works flawlessly for me.

    * When you say you have the watch on the lead wrist, I assume your left (if you are a right-handed player)?

    * You keep coming back that you say you tell it to measure shot. What I do is to start activity Golf, wait for the GPS until it finds it. I then select the course I'm playing and when the question "Keep Score?" shows up I say Yes and then select which Tee I'm playing from. The watch will then show me the hole that I'm at, with the distances to the flag. At the end, I end the round (to get the menu, press upper-right) and save the scorecard. Then in Garmin Connect I get a scorecard (like this) where I can find my shots and the distances. In this example, apart from starting the round and ending it, I have not interacted with the watch in any way except keeping it on me.

    There are some recommendations how to make it easier for the Autoshot feature but as I've said, on tee-shots and iron shots it is extremely seldom it misses for me.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to olni65

    Okay. That is what I anticipated you would say. I did the same thing in my most recent round. I set it at the start and just let it run. It does a fine job recognizing which hole I'm on, distance to the pin, asks for strokes at the end of each, as well as number of putts, penalties, etc. So the score at the end is accurate since I enter that number after each hole. But it's only picking up some of the shot distances.

    You are correct on which wrist I wear it on. Left wrist, right handed. I had a sweatshirt on this last round because it was 38-deg when we teed off. But the sweatshirt was not under the watch, and it came off a few holes later when it warmed up anyway. I think the watch just isn't sensitive enough to pick up the impact every time. My irons are very old, so despite that impact being less at the ball, I actually feel a stronger vibration up at the wrist than I do swinging a driver which is new last year. So those old clubs may be helping it register some of the closer shots. It rarely picks up a drive or a hybrid, all of which are newer clubs. Something to do with the newer clubs doing a better job of not stealing energy in the form of vibrations, combined with something to do with my swing is causing it not to register I bet. I'll probably have to call Garmin and see what they say. 

    If weather is good I'll head out and try this Friday again. I may try it on the non-lead wrist. Can't hurt at least. 

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to joqaelyzm

    My experience with the FR945 is similar to this issues described. I'll start a round of golf, ask it to keep score and have manually prompted the watch to measure my shot to little avail. If I do nothing and look at my stats/shots I'll be lucky if it called 5 shots the whole round, the accuracy of which I'd question. I'd really love this function to work, but it hasn't for me. The rest of the golfing features are great for my purpose/skill level.

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    I also have no issue with seeing most of my shots in the Garmin golf app post round, and I do find it useful to see how far certain shots go.

    However, can i ask a different question. My friends with dedicated Garmin golf watches (S42, S60, S62) show the distance from last shot on their main golf watch screen while playing (so the screen that has front/middle/back distance also shows distance from last shot). My FR 945 does not.  Is there any way to show that stat on our 945s?