All you need to play golf is a ball, a set of clubs and a bag, but as any golfer knows, modern accessories can make the game much easier and a lot more fun.
When Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus were winning majors, figuring out how far your ball was from the hole involved finding a marked sprinkler head, counting your steps from it to your ball and then doing some math with a hole location sheet.
Today, we have laser rangefinders that can instantly give you a yardage and GPS systems that can reveal how far you are from hazards, and how far you need to hit the ball to get over them. Instead of having an instructor standing by your side on the range, you can get helpful feedback and information from launch monitors.
Any golfer would be thrilled to get one of these electronic devices this holiday season.
2022 Gift Guides: Best golf gifts | Personalized gifts | Affordable gifts
Arccos GEN3 Smart Sensors
Price: $199.99
What you want this: For a decade, Arccos has been tracking shots and collecting data on golfers like you, and now the company is using that massive trove of information to help you make smarter decisions on the course. After screwing the sensors into the grips of each of your clubs, Arccos links to your smartphone using Bluetooth, then utilizes your phone’s GPS to track every shot you hit–along with the clubs you used to hit them–to reveal how far you typically hit every club in your bag, where you tend to miss and more. The system puts together a stats package, showing your strengths and weaknesses after every round, then suggests what to practice to improve. The Arccos Caddie feature can also make club recommendations as you play that can statistically give you the best options.
Arccos Gen3 Smart Sensors - $199.99Bushnell Pro X3 laser rangefinder
Price: $599.99
Why you want this: Pros and caddies on the PGA Tour use Bushnell lasers more than every other brand combined, and this is the company’s new flagship model. All the technology is here, including accuracy within a yard from 600 yards away and the ability to see information in either red or black when you look in the viewfinder. The Pro X3 is water resistant, vibrates in your hand when it hits the flag to reassure you that you have not accidentally zapped a tree or something behind the green and links to your smartphone via Bluetooth to take temperature and barometric pressure into consideration when calculating a “plays like” Slope distance. The Slope feature can be disabled so the Pro X3 can be used in tournament play.
Bushnell Pro X3 laser rangefinder - $599.99Garmin MARQ Golfer smartwatch
Price: $2,300
What you want this: At first glance, everyone will think you are wearing a high-end chronograph, but this impressive smartwatch tethers to your smartphone (Apple or Android) to unlock loads of golf-specific, health and productivity tools. With a titanium body and bezel, along with a sapphire lens, the MARQ Golfer has a color touchscreen and is preloaded with information on over 42,000 courses. It can display golf holes, distances to hazards, plays-like distances, track your stats and more. Off the course, it tracks your heart rate, counts steps, measures your speed during runs, measures your VO2 Max and has many other swimming, cycling, fitness and productivity features.
Garmin MARQ Golfer smartwatch - $2,300GoPro Hero 11 Black camera
Price: $399.98-$499.99
Why you want this: Yes, everyone brings their phone to the golf course these days, but the latest GoPro lets you take videos and capture photos from better angles, and at a higher quality, than any smartphone. Capable of shooting 5K videos at 60 frames per second and 4K at 120 frames per second, the Hero 11 Black also takes 24-megapixel still photo, is waterproof to 33 feet and is nearly indestructible. Set it up a few feet in front of the tee and capture incredible footage of tee shots. Put it on the edge of bunkers for mesmerizing sand shots. The Hero 11 Black can even be set up at night to capture star trails and time lapses.
GoPro Hero 11 Black - $399.98Precision Pro Ace golf speaker
Price: $149.99
Why you want this: Regardless of whether your tastes run to James Taylor or Taylor Swift, the Ace golf speaker can pump out fantastic sounds on the course all day thanks to a 20-hour battery life. An ultra-strong magnet on the back locks it into position on your cart. After you link it to your smartphone via Bluetooth, the Ace can use GPS to determine where you teed it up and provide you with audible distances to the front, middle and back of the green on the hole you’re playing with the press of a button on its tiny remote control.
Precision Pro Ace golf speaker - $149.99Rapsodo Mobil Launch Monitor
Price: $499.99
Why you want this: Small enough to slide into your golf bag, the Rapsodo Mobil Launch Monitor sets up quickly and uses a combination of radar and your smartphone’s camera to give you valuable data that is easy to share. It measures ball speed, carry distance, shot height and launch angle, then puts that data above a high-quality video of your swing, complete with a tracer pattern of your shot. It saves each session to track your progress, and each swing can be shared with a few taps. Rapsodo also has a team of top-quality coaches who can give you virtual lessons using the shot videos you create.
Rapsodo Mobile Launch Monitor - $499.99SkyCaddie LX5 GPS watch
Price: $299.99 – $349.99
Why you want this: Everything golfers like about the handheld SkyCaddie GPS devices has been designed into this lightweight wearable unit. Preloaded with over 35,000 ground-verified, error-corrected maps, the LX5 features a color touchscreen and allows you to zoom in and out of views of the hole you are playing while providing accurate distances to hazards, the front, middle and back of the green as you approach the putting surface, the diagram of the green shifts to match your perspective. The battery is strong enough to last 36 holes of play, and the LX5 tracks your steps and monitors your heart rate.
SkyCaddie LX5 GPS watch - $299.99
