The home launch monitor/simulator market has become a real growth sector in golf over the past few years with brands like Garmin and Rapsodo offering relatively affordable solutions for the home practicer. In this review, I will be taking a look at the Square Golf indoor launch monitor that offers both range and on-course functions. Coming in at an RRP of £699.99, I was keen to see whether it delivered the type of experience to place it amongst the best portable launch monitors in the game.
Upon unboxing the launch monitor, I was greeted with five individual boxes containing all the required components including the unit itself, charging cables, balls, etc and I was impressed with the quality of the packaging and the organization of the parts. The launch monitor itself is very lightweight coming in at only 470g with the battery so those of you who see weight as a barometer of robustness or quality won’t glean much confidence from your initial impression, but the construction looked very neat and clean to my eye.
Once I had everything out of the boxes and somewhat set up, it was time to download the Square Golf app which was very quick and easy and the app even gave me a little run-through of how to get started. Now it was time to start hitting some shots!
You can use any golf ball you wish with Square Golf, however, the recommendation is to use the pre-dotted balls provided as this will offer the most accurate and optimal ball data from your sessions. This may disappoint some who want to get the spin numbers from their gamer golf ball, but for the startlingly low price tag, there has to be one or two compromises. That said, if you happen to use a ball with visual tech such as the TaylorMade TP5 or TP5x Pix or the Callaway Chrome Soft Truvis, this will provide the same accurate readings as the Square Golf provided balls.
I started on the range as I wanted to get a feel for how responsive and accurate the unit was and I have to say I was very impressed on both counts. Some launch monitors have a somewhat annoying time delay from the time the ball impacts the screen to how quickly the software projects a ball flight, but with Square Golf this is almost instantaneous, which makes for a very realistic experience. In terms of the data, I put it up against my testing launch monitor the Full Swing KIT, and once again was impressed.
Barring one outlier in a 50-shot range session, yardage was comparable within two yards throughout, and the spin rate was never further than 300 rpm different on any club I used. This is even more impressive and reassuring when you consider that FullSwing is radar-based and considerably more expenses, whereas Square Golf is camera-powered. The only parameters I would like to have seen additionally would have been clubhead speed and smash factor, but seeing the regularity of firmware updates on offer, I doubt it will be long before we do.
When heading onto the course setup I was impressed by the quality and variety of courses on offer and the gameplay was genuinely excellent. Speed between shots kept a nice cadence with no frustrating loading times and due to the accuracy of the data, the whole experience was very enjoyable. Putting (as always with simulator golf seemingly) was a little trickier.
Having to imagine a distance in your head from a number is always tough for a visual player, however, there is little any simulator company can do about that (short of installing massive spinning putting greens like TGL) and the four feet gimmie circle of trust option makes things a little easier to digest. You can also set the green speed between 8 and 13 on the stimp meter to personalize your experience even more.
It should be noted that there will be a cost over time for the simulator experience with the requirement to purchase extra credits (see below image), however, you do get 1000 free credits straight out of the box which equates to around 55 rounds of golf.
Overall I am seriously impressed with the Square Golf launch monitor. So much so that I have actively encouraged my local driving range to consider purchasing a few units for commercial use in the clubhouse area. The gameplay is realistic, the speed is excellent and the data is more than accurate enough to satisfy the majority of golfers. If you have the space for a home indoor setup, you will get a lot of fun and value for money from a Square Golf launch monitor. For £699, there's excellent value for money on offer here compared to many of the best budget launch monitors.
