Shot tracking systems/watches/tags

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timd77

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Hi,

I currently use hole19 for tracking my score and giving yardages, I find it a bit of a faff to use it to track data, ie, which club I used and all that malarkey because it’s manual and I forget to do it until I’m ready to hit my next shot!

I’m thinking of trying one of those watch systems that come with tags you attach to each club, and the shot is tracked automatically. Specifically looking at the shot scope v5.

Anyone else been using it and have any opinions/reviews? And is there anything better for a similar price?
 
I had the Shot Scope V3 and now have the Shot Scope X5. I think the system is pretty good, although I need to make more use out of it. There are a few annoying bugs that occur occasionally, mainly app things.

I haven't used Arccos, it may be slightly more reliable - but the bugs aren't enough, for me, to warrant paying a monthly sub.
 
I used Game Golf from its early days (as one of the first tracking devices). Since then I have always liked shot tracking software as I feel it helps me know my distances on the course, and help me make better decisions when playing.

I too am reluctant to pay for a subscription based service, so since Game Golf stopped working (accepting they have a new platform recently launched), I have made do with Garmin's free service linked to their watches. It lacks some of the stuff Arcoss & Shotscope offers (especially short game & putting data), but it doesn't miss shots and gives me enough without paying a subscription. I know I could pay for tags to enhance the data collection, but what I get for free for now is adequate.
 
I have the ShotScope X5 and tags and it does what it says on the tin.

I don't use it well enough, but distances are accurate, the last shot feature is good and the tags work really well.
 
I've used Shot Scope for years now, first the V3 and now the H4 (little hand held device). It works great and the web interface has really improved. Tons of stats are tracked, it's quick and easy to edit your rounds afterwards as well. I'd highly recommend it, especially since you don't have a subscription fee.
 
Last edited:
i used the V3 Shotscope for a year or so (though now only use it for GPS).
The tagging and tracking was pretty good, and with the strokes gained stats you can see your weaknesses in your game.
it does get a bit fiddly when you need to go and edit your shots when it misses some, especially putts, but its a useful tool
 
Thanks for the replies, I think I’ll give the v5 a go.

The fiddlyness is something that might get annoying, but I guess you get used to it the more you use it. What’s it like when you’re having to play a provisional or declare a lost ball? With it picking up shots automatically is there a chance these will get missed?
 
Going against the grain a bit, I ended up ditching Shotscope, I'd had a H4 and a V5. The main things that bothered me were:

  • Having to wear the watch, probably not a deal-breaker to many others but I wanted to be able to keep my normal smart watch on when I played. The H4 avoids this, but then you have to have it clipped to your belt or in your pocket so you can't use the auto tagging.
  • I found the auto tagging unreliable often it would miss clubs. It was also annoying if you wanted to just swing a club nowhere near your ball, say chipping on the tee when waiting around or hitting in a net before play. I found sometimes it took a few minutes to acquire GPS on some courses so I had to start doing this early.
  • The accuracy wasn't that great. With putting this is especially obvious, which kind of makes the strokes gained for that part of the game a bit pointless. However, I often noticed for full shots I could hit a drive, look at my last shot distance on the device and then later when editing the round it showed the drive as 20 yards longer than what was on the watch. I never used a laser or other device to compare so I can't say which was the more accurate measurement.
  • The club distances weren't particularly accurate as they assume every shot is a standard full shot. You could go through the round editing all the shots to mark them as positional, but at that point why bother with the automatic tagging?
  • The V5 watch strap was "upside down", Shotscope claimed this was on purpose, but that made sense to me, it felt like an excuse for a poor design.
  • The tags slowly unwound themselves over repeated swings. You notice this more if you hit a few shots with the same club on the range.
I did like some things too:
  • The app, and the data available. Although the redesign made it seem like some of the data points were harder to find.
  • You can put your typical shot patterns on a new course and build a strategy.
In the end I've reverted to just capturing any stats I want manually. If you like stats and can tolerate the negatives I've listed it's worth having. Although it's not for me, it is still a good system.
 
Golf is fun said:
Going against the grain a bit, I ended up ditching Shotscope, I'd had a H4 and a V5. The main things that bothered me were:

  • Having to wear the watch, probably not a deal-breaker to many others but I wanted to be able to keep my normal smart watch on when I played. The H4 avoids this, but then you have to have it clipped to your belt or in your pocket so you can't use the auto tagging.
  • I found the auto tagging unreliable often it would miss clubs. It was also annoying if you wanted to just swing a club nowhere near your ball, say chipping on the tee when waiting around or hitting in a net before play. I found sometimes it took a few minutes to acquire GPS on some courses so I had to start doing this early.
  • The accuracy wasn't that great. With putting this is especially obvious, which kind of makes the strokes gained for that part of the game a bit pointless. However, I often noticed for full shots I could hit a drive, look at my last shot distance on the device and then later when editing the round it showed the drive as 20 yards longer than what was on the watch. I never used a laser or other device to compare so I can't say which was the more accurate measurement.
  • The club distances weren't particularly accurate as they assume every shot is a standard full shot. You could go through the round editing all the shots to mark them as positional, but at that point why bother with the automatic tagging?
  • The V5 watch strap was "upside down", Shotscope claimed this was on purpose, but that made sense to me, it felt like an excuse for a poor design.
  • The tags slowly unwound themselves over repeated swings. You notice this more if you hit a few shots with the same club on the range.
I did like some things too:
  • The app, and the data available. Although the redesign made it seem like some of the data points were harder to find.
  • You can put your typical shot patterns on a new course and build a strategy.
In the end I've reverted to just capturing any stats I want manually. If you like stats and can tolerate the negatives I've listed it's worth having. Although it's not for me, it is still a good system.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the in depth info. I have read that there can be issues, it sometimes misses shots and you have to correct certain things after the round so that it’s collecting the correct data. I just couldn’t justify the big money required for a similar set up with arcoss or garmin.
 
Golf is fun said:
Going against the grain a bit, I ended up ditching Shotscope, I'd had a H4 and a V5. The main things that bothered me were:

  • Having to wear the watch, probably not a deal-breaker to many others but I wanted to be able to keep my normal smart watch on when I played. The H4 avoids this, but then you have to have it clipped to your belt or in your pocket so you can't use the auto tagging.
  • I found the auto tagging unreliable often it would miss clubs. It was also annoying if you wanted to just swing a club nowhere near your ball, say chipping on the tee when waiting around or hitting in a net before play. I found sometimes it took a few minutes to acquire GPS on some courses so I had to start doing this early.
  • The accuracy wasn't that great. With putting this is especially obvious, which kind of makes the strokes gained for that part of the game a bit pointless. However, I often noticed for full shots I could hit a drive, look at my last shot distance on the device and then later when editing the round it showed the drive as 20 yards longer than what was on the watch. I never used a laser or other device to compare so I can't say which was the more accurate measurement.
  • The club distances weren't particularly accurate as they assume every shot is a standard full shot. You could go through the round editing all the shots to mark them as positional, but at that point why bother with the automatic tagging?
  • The V5 watch strap was "upside down", Shotscope claimed this was on purpose, but that made sense to me, it felt like an excuse for a poor design.
  • The tags slowly unwound themselves over repeated swings. You notice this more if you hit a few shots with the same club on the range.
I did like some things too:
  • The app, and the data available. Although the redesign made it seem like some of the data points were harder to find.
  • You can put your typical shot patterns on a new course and build a strategy.
In the end I've reverted to just capturing any stats I want manually. If you like stats and can tolerate the negatives I've listed it's worth having. Although it's not for me, it is still a good system.
Click to expand...
I've got the V3 watch, I don't mind wearing it and find the distances really useful, but the accuracy of the tagging is average at best, it quite often thinks I've played 500yrd holes in one shot, and I've got bored of sorting out after the round.
 
I have Shotscope V3 and didn't find it very accurate on shots where I knew the distance to the green so figured the rest may be inaccurate as well and stopped using it for gathering data.
I still like is as a basic GPS watch though.
 
Golf is fun said:
Going against the grain a bit, I ended up ditching Shotscope, I'd had a H4 and a V5. The main things that bothered me were:

  • Having to wear the watch, probably not a deal-breaker to many others but I wanted to be able to keep my normal smart watch on when I played. The H4 avoids this, but then you have to have it clipped to your belt or in your pocket so you can't use the auto tagging.
  • I found the auto tagging unreliable often it would miss clubs. It was also annoying if you wanted to just swing a club nowhere near your ball, say chipping on the tee when waiting around or hitting in a net before play. I found sometimes it took a few minutes to acquire GPS on some courses so I had to start doing this early.
  • The accuracy wasn't that great. With putting this is especially obvious, which kind of makes the strokes gained for that part of the game a bit pointless. However, I often noticed for full shots I could hit a drive, look at my last shot distance on the device and then later when editing the round it showed the drive as 20 yards longer than what was on the watch. I never used a laser or other device to compare so I can't say which was the more accurate measurement.
  • The club distances weren't particularly accurate as they assume every shot is a standard full shot. You could go through the round editing all the shots to mark them as positional, but at that point why bother with the automatic tagging?
  • The V5 watch strap was "upside down", Shotscope claimed this was on purpose, but that made sense to me, it felt like an excuse for a poor design.
  • The tags slowly unwound themselves over repeated swings. You notice this more if you hit a few shots with the same club on the range.
I did like some things too:
  • The app, and the data available. Although the redesign made it seem like some of the data points were harder to find.
  • You can put your typical shot patterns on a new course and build a strategy.
In the end I've reverted to just capturing any stats I want manually. If you like stats and can tolerate the negatives I've listed it's worth having. Although it's not for me, it is still a good system.
Click to expand...
When I had the V3 I found it very rarely missed a shot, it was something I was impressed with. What I wasn't impressed with was how fragile the straps were, I had 3 of them all fail on me before moving to the H4.

The H4 I just leave in my left pocket and I tap each club against it before my shot, I'll feel the vibration on my leg and I know the tagging worked. As you say putting is the main issue but it will be with all the GPS devices. I use manual putting so I press the button for each putt and the pin collect. You do have to edit the putting most rounds as it can be out so it depends on how accurate you want it. I know the length of my step so I use that to get the lengths of my putts.

I've found club distances are pretty accurate over the season and for the drives maybe it was taking it from the wrong tee? You can select which tee you played (and they have been mapped) if the tee hasn't been mapped you just send ShotScope an email and they will map the tees for you. Same if any of the tees are wrong, let them know and they update the map and you download the new version. Lately it's been defaulting to the yellow tees at mine for some reason but changing it to white does fixes it.

For me, I think it's great and it definitely highlighted the areas of my game I need to work on.
 
When I do track stats now I mostly care; club used, how far away from the hole I am, how far my last shot went (if not on the tee obviously) and what surface I am on - fairway, semi, rough, bunker etc... The surface is obvious and for the 2 distances a laser or standard GPS does the trick well enough. Around the green I'll just pace my putts, I have to walk to where I've just hit it to anyway, so just count my steps as I do it. I'll just note these down either on the card or on my phone, whilst not quite as seamless as using Shotscope it takes a few seconds whilst walking or waiting for a partner to hit so isn't a big overhead.

The drives, I've no idea why it was wrong. I don't think tee selection should matter as it's tagged the club from where I've hit, so it doesn't make sense the distance of last shot on the device would be different from the shot tracked in the app.

This did remind me of one other gripe too, when set to automatically switch holes, sometimes if I went long it would move onto the next hole and then had to be manually set back to the whole I was playing, but then on the device it had lost the data for the last shot I had played.

I don't have anything against Shotscope, it's a nice system, I just found that it wasn't really adding much value for me. If you are interested in the data but wouldn't otherwise collect it then it's a great fit.
 
Those of you that are spending the time collecting the stats and doing the post round stuff - what do you use the stats for?

Are you noticing a certain miss and then working on the range to try and correct it or is it more about learning how far you hit each club? Has collecting and using the figures lowered your handicap?
 
Neilds said:
Those of you that are spending the time collecting the stats and doing the post round stuff - what do you use the stats for?

Are you noticing a certain miss and then working on the range to try and correct it or is it more about learning how far you hit each club? Has collecting and using the figures lowered your handicap?
Click to expand...

The club distances are useful for obvious reasons, it makes me more confident with club selection, especially when needing a minimum carry, or wanting to not reach a hazard.

The other data helps me know what to practice, to improve, so I guess indirectly yes it has lowered my handicap. Without data, it's really common to reach the wrong conclusions, some examples:

  • We may 3 putt a lot and think we should practice putting when actually this was a good putting performance from the distance our approaches left us.
  • We may think our approaches were too far away, when actually they were a good dispersion from the distance we hit from.
  • We may think we are terrible from bunkers, because we don't get up and down when hitting greenside bunkers, but actually the proximity of the bunker shot was good and it was poor putting performance.
 
Neilds said:
Those of you that are spending the time collecting the stats and doing the post round stuff - what do you use the stats for?

Are you noticing a certain miss and then working on the range to try and correct it or is it more about learning how far you hit each club? Has collecting and using the figures lowered your handicap?
Click to expand...
I used Arcoss back before stopped playing to track every, distance, accuracy, types of misses, iron approaches , wedge play , sand saves, putting etc.

My handicap was a little lower than it is now, but what it did do was show me where I could tighten my game to minimise mistakes, it showed me my safe miss around the greens was in the bunker as my bunker stats were good etc. so if you’re using it the right way and not for ego it’s a massive help.

I’ll be getting g it again in the new year as a treat to myself to build a full picture over a playing season as I found I was able to save 2-3 shots a round.

Also helped with shot strategy once you collected enough data and what to work on at the range.
 
Golf is fun said:
The club distances are useful for obvious reasons, it makes me more confident with club selection, especially when needing a minimum carry, or wanting to not reach a hazard.

The other data helps me know what to practice, to improve, so I guess indirectly yes it has lowered my handicap. Without data, it's really common to reach the wrong conclusions, some examples:

  • We may 3 putt a lot and think we should practice putting when actually this was a good putting performance from the distance our approaches left us.
  • We may think our approaches were too far away, when actually they were a good dispersion from the distance we hit from.
  • We may think we are terrible from bunkers, because we don't get up and down when hitting greenside bunkers, but actually the proximity of the bunker shot was good and it was poor putting performance.
Click to expand...
Definitely agree that point 1 is a common mistake that a lot of golfers make.
 
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