Best Apple Watch golf apps 2021: knock shots off your handicap
If you’re a golfer with an Apple Watch, your smartwatch is more than capable of doubling as a golf GPS watch.
Thanks to the myriad of brilliant Apple Watch apps, there’s a host of golf tracking options available. And the quality has now improved to such an extent, only serious golfers and improvers need fork out for a fully-fledged golf watch.
A few years ago when the Apple Watch first debuted we’d have never recommended replacing your trusty golf watch with an Apple Watch app. Tethering to your phone for a GPS signal was painfully slow, apps were clunky and frankly unstable, and it was just an unpleasant experience.
Sure, these aren’t dedicated devices and therefore getting a reading can be a little slower than on a “proper” golf watch – but our testing has now found them to be accurate and usable. So read on for our choice of the Apple Watch golf apps worth trying out – including our top pick.
Wareable top pick – Hole19
Our favourite Apple Watch golf app, Hole 19’s original iPhone app is a top scoring social platform for golfers.
You’ll get distances to the front, back and middle of the green, and you can keep score on your watch as well – although we still fish out the iPhone app for recording putts and tee shot direction, which is just easier to input while waiting on the next tee box.
The app performance has improved dramatically as Apple Watch internals have got faster and better, and it’s now a seamless experience that’s a pleasure to use on the course.
Free | Download
Tag Heuer Golf app
Tag Heuer launched its app alongside its special Tag Heuer Connected Golf Edition, and it’s a thing of beauty. And what’s more, it’s available for Apple Watch.
It’s actually an older app called Fun Golf GPS rebadged for Tag Heuer – and it’s all about the snazzy visuals and course fly-pasts.
If you pay the $39.99 annual subscription you can access the incredibly slick interactive 2D course maps and distances to the green and hazards. You get distance to the green and hazards, shot measuring, scores and insights and a real-time club recommendation feature.
There’s also the same on-device scoring as well – and you can have up to four buddies on your watch and keep a leaderboard of who’s winning. It will also handle Stableford scores as well.
There’s a shot measuring feature – and it all syncs back to the iPhone app – where a host of metrics about your game are stored and tracked. This includes performance over par 3s, par 4s and par 5s – as well as estimated handicaps.
Many of the features here are on Hole 19 for free. But the quality of the mapping is so impressive that this is our top paid-for pick.
Free ($39.99 for premium features) | Download
Golf GPS SwingU
One big feature of many of the new GPS golf watches is virtual caddie features – and this is also the focus of SwingU. The app does all the standard distance tracking and features some decent aerial photography of each hole in the iPhone app, but it’s the shot tracking we really like.
If you pay the $4.99 per month subscription you can log each club if you desire, which will build up a database of average distances and club performance over time. It will then start suggesting which club is right for you, and just like advanced Garmin Approach golf watches, will even augment the data with real time wind direction and shot elevation. Impressive stuff.
Free ($4.99 per month for advanced shot tracking) | Download
Golf Game Book
For those that live for the competition, Golf Game Book’s app is focused on group scoring. You can create tournaments with real time scoring – which isn’t unique to Golf Game Book – but you can also view the leaderboard on your Apple Watch, with at-a-glance stroke-play scores for up to four players.
There’s the standard range-finding aspect too, and you can input data on fairways hit/missed and putts taken. The app is nowhere near as slick as Hole 19 or 18Birdies, but the group scoring thing makes it well worth checking out.
Free | Download
18Birdies
Another solid range-finding Apple Watch app, 18Birdies excels at scoring, with the ability to add strokes, fairways hit/missed, putts, chips and greens in regulation, all from the wrist. The Watch data view is slightly more crammed with information than Hole 19, though, which might not suit fat fingers.
The iPhone app is really well-designed, and filled with fun extra side games, rewards and some instruction – there’s also a premium tier with club recommendations and advanced stats.
Free | Download
GolfShot
There’s a lot more to the GolfShot platform than wrist-based distances, and it’s actually one of the better services for booking tee-times and working out handicaps. However, in terms of design it does lag the competition, and we found it a little difficult to use.
The Apple Watch app itself offers a complete overview of the hole, which is unique to the app, and you can zoom in on the green – although it uses zoomed in satellite imaging, which isn’t of the best quality. We much preferred Fun Golf GPS’s colourful imagery.
Free | Download
