Review: GolfPinFinder

As a casual golf fan (read: I suck), I have a real appreciation for the intricacies of golf and how tough this damn game can be to play.  Most folks agree that golf was invented in Scotland in the 12th century… and surprisingly, it hasn’t changed all that much, save for the lack of men wearing skirts.  Still, technology has found a way to creep into even the most time-honored sports.  No, I’m not talking about Tiger Woods and his dirty texts/voicemails…  I mean GPS!

If you’re a Palm Pre owner, you’ll be happy to know there are a few golf GPS apps to choose from.  The folks at AppJammers, LLC think they have a winner with GolfPinFinder ($9.95). GPF was once a homebrew app, and made many fans back in the day.  Having used it twice now, I can tell you it’s come a looooong way since. Read our detailed impressions of the app after the break…

Let’s do a walk-through of how I used the device, shall we?  (I confess that because I was so intensely focused on my game, I neglected to take any screencaptures. Fortunately, the good folks at AppJammers provided a ton of great screen shots on their site.  I’ll put ‘em to good use.)

Before hitting the course

Before slapping on my plaid pants, I opened the app to play around with it for a little bit.  The GPS had a tough time finding my location, but that’s because I was indoors.  Still, I was able to search for golf courses in my immediate area, including a really small golf course in my really small hometown.  How?  GPF taps into BBGPSGolf, an open-source depository of thousands of golf courses, originally created for Blackberry users.  Can’t find your golf course listed?  You can add it.  There’s two ways of doing this:  the first by mapping out the course using your webOS device directly (a pain, but doable if you’re motivated enough), and the second, by going online and mapping it out.  I didn’t do this myself, but from what I’ve read in forums and reviews, it’s not too hard to do.

The next task is inputting your clubs.  Although the standard golf bag should hold 14 clubs only, this app allows you to add more, since most golfers like to carry additional clubs.  If you happen to know your personal minimum and maximum distances for each club, you can enter them into GPF, and the program will remember this for future recommendations while you’re playing.

Teeing off

Although I wasn’t looking forward to displaying my golf swing in public (hey it’s nowhere near as bad as Sir Charles’), I was very eager to see what this app could do.  For the most part, it didn’t disappoint.  AppJammers has a quality app, here.

The first thing I did was select my golf course.  You can select up to four players.  I was golfing with my cousin, so I marked two players, and named them appropriately.  You also have the option of playing the front 9, back 9, or all 18 holes.  Gluttons for punishment and self-depracation that we were, we played all 18 holes.

Once you get started, you are met with the main screen.  It’s really easy on the eyes, and easy to understand.  The GPS took a little while longer to acquire a good signal than I liked, but I had read about this issue on the forums and a reboot later my Pre achieved GPS lock quickly.  One thing I didn’t like was that you are only shown the middle tee’s distance.  This didn’t affect our play or distance accuracy, but I would have liked to have a fuller selection.  (Tees can be turned off in the options.)

The standard stuff is there, like front/center/back of tee distance markers, and the ability to track how far you “nutted” the ball. This particular feature is a lot of fun… unless your opponent consistently out-drives you! :p

Unlike other golf apps, GPF has several really useful features while playing. For one, you can jot down notes about each hole so you remember the painful lessons you learned the first time around. You can also set multiple GPS points to mark pretty much whatever you want — sand traps, desirable lies, you name it — for future reference.  Very handy.

Tap the “Google Maps” icon and you have a great birds-eye view of the course. Really cool.

Keeping score is a snap…  just tap the “pencil” button and mark the damage. You can keep track of numbers of putts, or even Fairways in regulation (FIR) or Greens in Regulation (GIR).  If you’re not too embarrassed by your score, you can even e-mail it to someone.  You can also save each and every round that you play right on your phone, in case you ever want to use it for bragging rights or to compete with yourself in the future.

All in all, I was impressed with GolfPinfinder’s GPS accuracy.  I usually had a signal accurate down to 3-6 yards, which suited me fine on the tee and the fairway, but could have been better on the greens.  No matter… I can’t sink a putt to save my life, anyway.  But for you this could be an issue.

One more thing deserves mention: this app is highly customizable. You can view each hole in a compressed view (without the large green graphic), and you can even shut off your GPS while the screen is off to conserve battery.  If battery life is not an issue for you, then I recommend leaving GPS on, as re-acquiring an accurate GPS signal was a bit janky for me.  If you want my advice, just remember to leave your screen off as much as possible.  More than likely you’ll have to have the screen brightness turned up all the way on a sunny day.  As Part 5 of my tips and tricks series teaches you, that KILLS the battery. (Yeah I know, shameless plug.)

Back to the clubhouse

There’s a good many other features I haven’t mentioned, such as the ability to track points for “skins” or “wolf” games… I don’t know the last thing about those styles of play, but it’s good to know this app has got ‘em covered.  If you want a better idea of what this app is about, check out the developer’s video and screen shots in our gallery.

There are three golf GPS apps for webOS, all of them with good reviews. I’ve used the free version of Golf Caddie by DTW Consulting, Inc. ($9.99), and was very impressed by it as well. While Golf Caddie seemed to have fewer GPS hiccups during my one day trial than I experienced with GolfPinFinder, I certainly appreciated GPF’s nicer -looking UI and more powerful features.

Update! I contacted the developer for GPF, and was excited to receive a very prompt reply featuring a slew of enhancements, such as severe weather alerts while playing, online backup of saved rounds, courses, club distances… good stuff!

The take-home? GPF comes off to me as a real labor of love for its developer… and this is something every end-user wants to see.

Interested? See the buzz about it and send it straight to your phone from appRoundup.

Gallery