Playing Golf with the Apple Watch

Hi

I have played 9 holes last Friday with the watch and also been to Gym several times and no problems yet.

I am very conscious about the Watch getting damaged but I bought it to use for this purpose.

So far the Watch has been fantastic, I will be playing a full 18 holes on Friday so if there is any issues I will let you know.

I will be using the Hole 19 App.

Regards

I have played 36 holes with it already. Works great. Sport edition very secure on wrist. I have always played with a watch on so wearing the apple watch didn't bother me at all. I used fungolf while playing. yardages were updated very quickly on the watch upon each use

There is still some debate about whether a mechanical watch can be harmed by the jarring effects of golfing. Anecdotal evidence suggests that it's not a problem at all, but the manufacturers of these precision timepieces say it's probably safest to avoid it.

That discussion only applies to mechanical watches. There are no moving parts in an Apple Watch so there's no reason to believe golfing would harm the watch in any way. I don't think Apple has weighed in on the issue yet.

I haven't played golf with my watch yet, but one of the reasons that I bought the watch was to use it as a GPS device while golfing rather than usin my iPhone. I use the Golfshot app for this. I wil try it this week for the first time.

True but looking at your wrist is easier than constantly pulling your phone out of your back pocket which is what I have been doing for the last couple of years. Note that I normally walk and carry when I play golf. So I could keep the phone in my golf bag, assuming that it could get a GPS signal while in the bag.

Yesterday I played golf with the Apple Watch for the first time using the Golfshot app for distances and scoring. I found that I had to change the Activate on Wrist Raise setting from Show Watch Face to Resume Previous Activity. Otherwise you keep having to go back to the home screen and select the Golfshot app which is too much futzing around. I kept my phone in my back pocket throughout the round and rarely looked at it - the GPS seemed to work fine like this.

One thing that is annoying is the short time that you have until the displays goes blank. You often need to wait a few seconds for the GPS distance to settle down and often the watch would switch off during this time.

For scoring I found it hard to use the touchscreen. I don't know if this is the app's fault, my watch or me. With Golfshot you swipe right to bring up the score entry page. It defaults to Par - you press + or - buttons to adjust your score and then press save. But this always took longer than it should have as it didn't seem to register my touches.

I have a 42mm Green Sport watch, and have worn it while playing 2-3 rounds of golf since getting it. I am right-handed and wear it on my left-wrist. It's extremely secure while playing and since I wear it almost 24 hrs/day, I don't really notice its there. I tend to wear it an inch above the actual wrist bone, so that it gets better readings and hence is out of the way of any wrist movement while playing golf.

I haven't found an "Activity" for workouts as it relates to golf, so I just start playing and let it do it's thing. I've played 9-holes in a cart, 18 holes walking/carrying my clubs, and 18 holes, half walking/carrying and half in a cart. I find the activity tracking is fairly accurate.

I haven't installed any golf-specific apps, I have a separate GolfBuddy GPS unit for that, so I can't speak to the GPS functions. I just know that it's great to play with!

It'll certainly resist the vibration.

I assume you mean with the watch your wrist, not that you're going to use it instead of the ball 🙂

Maybe we can persuade someone else to experiment 🙂

But the Apple Watch is not a GPS device. You'll still need to carry your phone.

@leddy1 - Which other apps? I didn't get too many vibrations during the round so that didn't distract me if that is what you mean.