The best golf watches 2024: top GPS watches for golf
The best golf watches are excellent fitness watches in their own right, but they really shine when using their GPS tools to elevate your game on the course. Like conventional smartwatches, golf watches will record your runs and cycling with built-in GPS, but they’re also tailor-made to use course maps to help you make decisions, choose clubs, and monitor swing speed and power.
Essentially, golf watches are a combination of the best smartwatches and the best fitness trackers, with special software tailored towards improving golfers’ mental and physical play. Golf watches usually offer health-tracking features comparable with other fitness watches, such as the usual step count, calorie-burn tracker, heart rate monitoring and sleep score. The top ones also come with GPS readouts of thousands of courses, ways to keep track of your score, record your swing speed, recommend clubs based on your next shot, and loads more.
Some golf watches can measure your swing speed with an on-wrist accelerometer, and moonlight as a virtual scorecard, so you can check how you’re doing with a flick of the wrist. Other features abound: the Garmin Approach S62, for example, can suggest clubs based on wind speed and direction, plus the distance you typically swing with each type. That means that can help you trace how effective your shots are after the game, and see what you could do differently next time.
If you want to improve your game when you’re teeing up, therefore, investing in a golf watch is a good idea, especially if you want to adjust your game on the fly for better hole-by-hole results. Just keep in mind that if you are a pro golf player and are playing competitively, you need to purchase one that’s tournament-legal. Some advanced golf watches can be disallowed.
We’ve tested many of the top golf watch models on the market, putting them through their paces so we can help narrow down your choices to the right one for you.
The list in brief
Best budget
Packed with features and designed to give you insights into your golf game, the S12 picks a lot of Garmin’s best golf features at a small price tag.
Read more below
3. TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 Golf Edition
Best premium
Tag Heuer’s mega-premium offering is a sumptuous smartwatch, but at a hefty price.
Read more below
Best for maps
Garmin Approach S62’s bright, full screen and vector maps offer a more complete, interactive experience on the course.
Read more below
The best golf watch overall
The Garmin Approach S42, released in March, is our pick for the best golf watch of 2021. It sits in the middle of Garmin’s golf watch lineup, in between the all-singing, all-dancing S62 and the pared-back S12.
Like all the best Garmin golf watches, it’s pre-loaded with details of 42,000 courses worldwide, plus Garmin Autoshot to analyze and records shot distances. Green View allows you to position the pin manually using the large color touchscreen and shows you the green’s true shape. Battery life is impressive too, lasting up to 10 days in smartwatch mode, or 15 hours with GPS enabled.
The Approach S42 is also smart enough for everyday wear. Whereas many golf watches focus on function above form, the Approach S42 has a metal bezel and buckle, plus a slim case that mean it won’t look out of place off the course.
That’s just as well because with all-day step tracking, sleep tracking, and workout profiles for both cycling and swimming, you might not want to take it off.
During our tests, we missed the Virtual Caddie feature of the Approach S62 but loved the AutoShot mode. It has fewer fitness tracking features for off the course, but strikes a good compromise and is a well-priced all-rounder.
Read our full Garmin Approach S42 review
The best budget golf watch
The Garmin Approach S12 is an entry-level golf watch, and one of the best available in its price bracket. It design and features belie its modest price tag, and include detailed maps of 42,000 courses, plus GPS that proved super accurate in our tests. The Approach S12 syncs with the same Garmin Golf app as the company’s higher-end watches, putting a huge array of data at your fingertips and making it a particularly good value for money.
Although it lacks a color screen, which makes maps a little trickier to interpret, but it’s easy to read in direct sunlight and further compensates with outstanding battery life, and we easily got several weeks’ use out of it before needing to recharge. The main disadvantage is the need to record shots manually, which more advanced players might find tedious, and isn’t a concern with higher-end watches that offer automatic shot-tracking.
Read our full Garmin Approach S12 review
The best premium golf watch
Golf watches don’t come much more supreme than the TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 Golf Edition and if you’re after the best premium golf watch then this is likely it. Channelling that TAG Heuer pedigree, this is a sleek, chic, robust, and well-designed golf watch. It’s comfy to wear, strong and tough, has a secure fit, and is beautifully finished.
The 1.39in/35.3mm AMOLED display is crisp, bright, and clear. However, the use of some colors in some shaded on-course areas could be more distinct. The Calibre E4 Golf Edition’s golf functionality is excellent, and combined with the TAG Heuer pedigree and terrific smartwatch functionality, ensuring it offers the fullest package going.
Specifically, there are more than 40,000 preloaded courses available, and a virtual caddie that will learn your shots and distances so it can suggest the best match in future rounds. One can critique it slightly for not offering the most bleeding-edge golf features in 2024 that some competitors can offer such as green contour depiction, and ‘plays like’ functionality, but those are brand-new features on the very latest watches. The price tag will just be flat-out too much for some, too.
If you’ve got a very healthy budget and are looking for the best golf watch at the premium end of the market (which is also a top-end, high-quality smartwatch) then the TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 Golf Edition is a brilliant choice.
Read our full TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 Golf Edition soon.
The best golf watch for maps
The Garmin Approach S62 offers everything you get from the S42 and more, if you can afford the extra cash. Garmin’s Virtual Caddie app suggests clubs based on wind speed and direction, and the distance you typically swing with each type. You can check out the wind before taking your shot, and there’s a full vector map complete with touch targeting, which allows you to see the distance to any point by simply tapping the extra-large 1.3in screen.
Its larger battery means it can keep running for up to 14 days in smartwatch mode, or 20 hours with GPS enabled. It also boasts a wide range of everyday health tracking tools too, including all-day stress monitoring (based on changes in heart rate), relaxation reminders. There’s a pulse-ox sensor for measuring blood oxygen saturation at night, and performing spot-checks during the day.
Garmin Pay allows you to make contactless payments (provided your bank is one of those supported), you can use it to control music on your smartphone, receive app notifications, check the weather forecast, and send text responses (if you have an Android phone).
Read our full Garmin Approach S62 review
The Best golf watch for shot detection
The Shot Scope V3 is surprisingly slim at just 10mm thick, making it comfortable and convenient for all-day wear. Despite that slender profile, it’s a very impressive device packed with thoughtful touches and handy features to help improve your game and save time. It boasts automatic shot detection, with every shot plotted on a map of the course. 36,000 course maps are pre-loaded, and GPS distances are quick to update.
It also comes bundled with 16 tracking tags, allowing the watch to identify your clubs automatically. These are usually sold separately, even with premium golf watches, so this is a real boon.
The only real downside is that the screen is relatively low resolution (just 176 x 176 pixels compared to 260 x 260 for the Garmin Approach S62), meaning less information can be displayed at once. There are also no touch controls (the watch is operated using four physical buttons along the edges). On the plus side, this means you’re less likely to activate anything accidentally, but it also means navigating maps is less intuitive.
Read our full Shot Scope V3 review
How to choose the best golf watch for you
The best golf watch for you will depend on a variety of different factors. Firstly, it needs to be the right price for you, whether you’re after a high-end premium watch or a more conservatively-priced model. It needs to have the right features for you. If you struggle with club choice, you’re better off with one of the premium models which has Garmin’s ‘virtual caddie’ club recommendation functionality. If you’d rather not have this feature, you could save some money and opt for the Garmin Approach S12.
It’s also worth checking if your local courses are available pre-loaded onto the watch, or available to download on Garmin, SkyGolf or Shot Scope’s companion apps. If your stomping grounds aren’t available, you may not get all the functionalities you want.
You might need more typical smartwatch features such as sleep tracking, heart rate monitoring and notification functions, or you might prefer a wristwatch with slimmed-down features to save money on the total price. SkyCaddie LX5’s simple pedometer and heart rate functions don’t hold a candle to Garmin’s features, which crib from its wildly successful fitness and running watches.
Finally, check the battery life. If you don’t like charging your watch between games, you’ll want to plump for an S62, while watches with a shorter battery life will need you to remember to charge each time you head out the door.
Below, we’ve answered a couple of your most-asked questions, as well as an insight into how we test each watch as we get them.
What is a golf rangefinder?
A rangefinder is a tool that helps you measure the distance between you and your target, using either GPS or a laser. GPS rangefinders (as found in golf watches) are faster to use, but laser ones are more accurate. Golf watches and rangefinders are slightly different, but using a wrist-mounted GPS device can act in place of a free-standing laser rangefinder.
Does Fitbit make a golf watch?
Fitbit doesn’t make a dedicated golf watch, but all of Fitbit’s GPS-enabled watches have a golf-tracking mode that you can use to monitor calories burned during your game. This will only be accurate if you’re walking though, not using a golf buggy.
How we test the best golf watches
We test each of the best golf watches comprehensively. We look at the watch’s tracking technology, battery life, and compatibility with different phones. Does it have the technology to track and calculate the distance of your shots? Can its GPS technology map your favorite courses?
We take each watch for several test-drives on real golf courses to test all their key features.
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