How to Use GolfShot on the Apple Watch Ultra 2 to Track Every Shot
How to Use GolfShot on the Apple Watch Ultra 2 to Track Every Shot
How to Use GolfShot on the Apple Watch Ultra 2 to Track Every Shot
Tech
I'm here at the legendary T PC Harding Park in San Francisco to check out the latest version of the golf shot app on the Apple Watch Ultra Two to see if it can really improve. My golf game. Golf shot is a GPS golf app which uses the Apple Watch Ultra Two's accelerometer and gyroscope to record for your golf swing, allowing golfers to see detailed swing motion data using a new feature called swing ID in both range practice sessions and out on the course. I'm gonna hit a few balls here on the driving range with swing ID and able to see if it gives me any insights into how I'm striking the ball to get started, open the golf shot app and sign in. There are three editions of golf shot, including the free edition golf Shot pro and golf shot champions, which have different annual pricing. I'm using golf shot pro which includes the new swing id feature to turn on swing id, click on settings, select Apple watch and toggle on the switch next to swing ID as well as any parameters you want to record to start a range session. Open the app and select golf on the bottom left hand side of the screen, tap on practice and select range practice. You can create a range which will show you a satellite view of your location. Once you've added a driving range, you can drag and drop hazards and pins onto the range that will show you distances based on your GPS location, confirm your location and press save. So now that I'm in range practice mode, the Apple watch has this interface, it's showing me the club. I'm hitting, I can change that by scrolling through or using the digital crown. It's showing me where I placed those bunkers and the flags when I set up the range and then it also tell you swing ID is ready and there's no current swing. So I'm gonna start with my sand wedge and just start hitting some short shots. You can turn on haptic feedback which vibrates and makes a sound after every shot letting you know the shot was recorded. OK? So the haptic feedback is kind of annoying. So I'm gonna turn it off, select Apple watch under settings and switch off haptic feedback. Swing ID will automatically record your swing data sensing when you strike the ball and show you a detailed analysis after each swing including tempo, rhythm and your wrist path. That was my fourth shot with the sand wedge. That's my rhythm. Here's tempo hand speed was 13.1 MPH. The watch will continue to count your shots with each club. Ok. So now I'm gonna hit a little longer club. So now I'm gonna hit an eight iron. I'm gonna change this to add iron. I'm gonna pick a target. I'm gonna hit to 100 and 48 yards. As you hit and look at the swing data, you can make small changes to your swing based on what it's telling you. So, as you could see, I hit five shots with the sand wedge. If I toggle through to another club pitching wedge, I hit three shots. If I toggle through to nine iron, I'll show you hit five shots with a nine iron. So it keeps track of every shot you hit on the range. Golf shot does not track where the ball lands on the driving range. But on the phone app, you can drag and drop a golf ball where your ball landed, which helps you understand the distance and accuracy. You're hitting each club bladed that one. So now I'm gonna play nine holes out here on the Fleming course and track my swing using GPS and golf shots, swing ID metrics to analyze every shot a little bit out to the right to start a round of golf. Press start round in the golf section of the app, then select your course and T box, enter your name and any playing partners, select your round options and press start round, choose your first hole and you will see a comprehensive preview of the hole with GPS data showing distances to different features on the course. The app gives you a club and distance recommendation at the top. When you start the round, it will start syncing the imagery of the golf course with the watch. As you can see off the first tee, it's telling me to use a three wood to 238 yards. So now we're looking at the watch interface and it tells you what club to hit, how many yards there are to the middle of the green. That's the front of the green and the back of the green. If you want to change clubs, use the digital crown to scroll through other golf clubs. You can long press the watch for other options to view the green. And if it missed one of your shots, like it didn't register your shot, you can click missed shot. If you scroll left, it tells you information about the shot you're about to hit and whether tracking is on or off. If you scroll all the way to the left, you'll find swing ID. The Apple watch failed to record my first shot. It didn't record the shot and my second shot, let me restart everything after a quick restart. I'm just gonna chip this up here. This is my third shot and hopefully it's gonna register oh, a little bit past the hole and that one registered. So here's a look at my last sand wedge shot from 19 yards away. So you could see my swing tempo was one second, 4.7 mile per hour hand speed. My back swing arc was at almost 60 degrees. Transition was two degrees. And it's telling me that I was shallowing. And then it also shows wrist path, impact plane and wrist rotation as well as wrist close rate. So there's some helpful information which will tell me how I'm swinging the club. Ok. I'm on the third hole par 395 yards. Hold it. My tempo was 1.4 seconds, 14.8 hand speed. So my hands were moving pretty quick on that one. What I tend to do is look at my tempo, the slower tempo I have, I usually hit a better shot and I also like to look at my impact plane if it's anywhere above 70% it means I hit the ball really solid. The last hole was a par three. So I'm gonna input my score. I made a bogey. I had two putts. My first putt was about 6 ft from the pin. Second putt was about 2 ft. I hit a five iron off the tee was not in any sand or in penalty. So I just save and I go to the next hole. Uh So that was 230 with a three wood. My tempo was too fast. That's the first thing I see, hand speed is a little too fast. I kind of pushed it out to the right wrist, rotation was open. So that's all bad. If you wanna track auto strokes gained, you have to pin the flag on the green for each hole to get a more accurate distance. You can also pin the flag on the green using your phone. Then manually enter the distance for each put golf shot has a ton of bells and whistles. The app has an A R mode so you can use your phone as a range finder, utilizing A R to identify hazards and other obstacles on the course. After your golf round, everything is recorded in the app. So you can go back and look at stats and your swing ID data. You can pull up past rounds and practice sessions to analyze where you need to improve. Also your stats and score may not always be accurate because golf shot will record practice swings, just recorded my practice swings. It doesn't always sense tap in puts, you need to be meticulous about entering your data manually to get accurate readings. Ok. So I've used this now for three days and here are my thoughts on how it works. This technology is meant for serious golfers who really want to track their swing data and this is not a frictionless experience. I'm a bogey golfer. I've been playing golf for about 15 years, so I just want to give you a sense of my golfing abilities. I spent a lot of time thinking about and focusing on the watch during my round. My game suffered as a result on the first few holes. But as I got into a rhythm and got used to using it, it got easier. I found myself looking at tempo and speed a lot after a good shot. And I tried to match those metrics and recreate that feeling on the next shot. When I did hit a solid shot, the impact plane was always around 70 degrees and the wrist rotation gave me a good picture of what my wrists were doing, which I then tried to correct. Now, the weight of the watch did take some getting used to. I'm not used to hitting a golf shot with a large heavy watch on my wrist. I pulled it, I was able to see the watch easily in the bright sun without my glasses and the scoring and the numbers were large and easily visible. And I was able to enter all the data I wanted to track for each hole by the time I reached the golf cart. So in retrospect, if I really got into it and started tracking every shot like a true golf data nerd, the golf shot app and the Apple Watch Ultra Two could improve your game over time. Finally made a par