For most of my golfing life I never had a GPS watch, but now I can't be without one. Leaving the house to go and play golf and then realizing I've left my Garmin Approach S62 charging in the bedroom is a horrible feeling, matched only by forgetting a phone or wallet. I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I'm utterly dependent on it now...
I guess it is similar to how reliant we have all become on cellphones. People of my generation and younger never had a phone growing up and we coped just fine. Yet now, being without a phone is almost unthinkable. It actually induces a mild form of panic, which sounds ridiculous but you all know what I'm talking about.
In terms of golf, if I'm playing without my watch, it unsettles me and definitely impacts how I play. However, my trusty S62 gives me reassurance in a number of ways. Ranked as one of the best Garmin watches on the market, this is why I think you should upgrade your exciting model this Black Friday!
One of the things I rely on most is the auto distance tracker. A lot of watches have this feature but, on many of them, you need to activate it manually, which frankly is a pain because it's so easy to forget to do it.
Like the best golf watches, and on the S62, you don't have to do anything, it does it for you. Essentially, you hit your drive and, as soon as you start walking after it, the watch is measuring the distance. By the time you reach your ball you know how far you have hit it.
The reason that feature is so handy, though, isn't to see how far a drive has gone. For me, it's main function is in helping me find my ball when I've missed a fairway. Once you know how far you carry with driver, it massively narrows down the search area. When I don't have the watch, that's the thing I miss most.
The S62 also allows you to scroll through distances to all hazards and layups, while it will also display on the touchscreen where your drive is likely to land based on your usual driving distance. Knowing how far it is to the front or a hazard, or what the distance is to clear, it is really handy and, if I don't have that, it really throws me off and makes the shot more difficult. Knowing how far I need to hit it doesn't mean I'll make the shot, but at least it removes the uncertainty.
The S62 has something called Pinpointer too, which I might only use once every couple of rounds but offers a real advantage over other watches. It's basically a compass that will point to where the green is, so when you have a blind approach or if you are blocked out by trees and need to hit over them, this feature is a Godsend.
Virtual Caddie is a nice feature that will recommend a club selection based on data collected from previous rounds, while if you sync your watch to the Garmin app on your phone, which is one of the best golf GPS apps on the market, you can access the 'plays like' feature that factors in slope and wind speed when giving you the distance to the pin.
Another feature I use all the time is the scorecard, which also allows you to record whether you hit the fairway or missed left or right. You can enter how many penalty strokes you had and also how many putts you needed. All of this info is recorded and can be accessed by logging into your free Garmin account. There you will see all sorts of useful data such as drive distance, approach accuracy and putting statistics.
There is a ton more I could mention but, the bottom line, is that the only watch on the market I think is better than the S62 is the watch Garmin brought out as its successor - the Approach S70. There isn't a massive difference in the two though and the arrival of the S70 simply means you can get the S62 at an even better price, so definitely something to think about this Black Friday!
