Skycaddie UK have now succeeded in disuading me from their product and this discussion tops it off.

I only want one course so have no need for all these fancy membership programs. However even to have one course I need to spend £30 every year (else it is deleted from my device). If that is not bad enough, the UK cost of membership is double that in the US. In fact I could buy a worldwide membership in the US for the same as a UK only membership! Furthermore the hardware cost is too high in the UK - it is significantly more than the US price + shipping/duty/tax. Then if I do buy it from the US and do purchase a UK membership (as I am informed I must), they wont cover the warranty!

What a total rip off! If I get a skycaddie product, it will be second hand and it will not be paying a penny in membership!

How can they possibly delete it from your unit? Once it's downloaded to your unit it's there to stay. I guess they can delete it from your Skycaddie vault which is held online, but if you only want the one course why would you ever need to reconnect to it??

Why buy one at all, How unreasonable to be able get as many courses as you want throughout the year for any country, how dare skycaddie charge me for all the hard work that must go into measuring the courses, we all must know that it doesnt cost them anything to send a Professionl Mapper to accurately measure the courses,nor will it have cost them to keep the courses updated, and as for their tecnical support office I bet that must be run for peanuts,what a rip off to want to make a profit!
So far as the cost of the unit,of course its cheaper in the States EVERYTHING is to us, but add on shipping etc and it all levels out and why should the European office look after you, you didnt support them!
I love my Skycaddie the guys at their office are really helpful, if you only play one course you should know it well enough not to need such a device, bet you dont play in the medal in case the Pro might make a penny or two!

And before you say it.......no i dont work for them nor am I sleeping with the girl on switchboard, I just think that the product is good and reasonably priced especially if you compare it with the other stuff out there

I send all my Skycaddies over from the US and I pay for all the shipping and send over as a cheap gift and it only costs 160 GBP. It can be at your doorstep in a week.

As yardage books cost up to £5 these days and I play about 12-15 new courses a year, plus my own every week, I think the subscription is not too bad.

if you map your own course - is that delete-able?

Renny, I am more concerned that you responded before you read my comment! Not entirely a pleasant response to a new member.

My complaint about the membership is not that it costs money, rather that I have absolutely no need for the features it provides yet I have to pay it in order to make use of any advanced features. I need ONE course so it is a total waste of my money to pay for unlimited courses in my region! I am not asking them to map courses for free, I am simply not asking for them at all! As for tech support - hardware wise that is something that they should have covered in the initial hardware cost!

Also you fail to note that I have studied the US and UK costs - I clearly stated that the addition of shipping/duties/taxes does NOT make the costs comparable.

Beast Of Barnsley: Thanks for the reply. The reply I got indicated that the courses would be deleted - I have not studied the software config so I was unsure whether the device itself may have a built in timer which allows it to know when your membership is out of date and it thus disabled courses stored. Does anyone know for sure that this is not the case and that the only way a course would be deleted is if I connect to the online facility?

Adam,

I think you're being a bit harsh on Skycaddie here.

If you only want to play one course..you DO NOT need a membership..just map it yourself!

It clearly states on the Skycaddie UK website
"Note: Membership is not required to obtain GPS signals or to record or play personal courses on your SkyCaddie."

However if you want a professionally mapped course and all of the other membership benefits..buy a membership!

Also, tech support is covered for 12 months..just like every other consumer piece of electronics.

As for US v UK pricing..EVERYONE knows that there is a massive price differential between the two countries..why are you acting so shocked about it?? The same applies for almost every electronic item you can name!

It's a bit of a liberty to expect all of the web storage and synchronisation benefits for free!

If you've got a SatNav..do you get free map updates?? I bet not! If you want to store your digital piccies on the web and display them properly..then that's chargeable as well..even though there are some free services around.

Bottom line is that if your not happy with the Skycaddie offerings..Don't buy one!

Adam,

I do have the SG3 and can confirm that there has never been a request to enter time or date on the unit. I can't confirm whether it has an inbuilt timer that is factory set (I can't believe there would be - for what reason?)

My course are stored on Skycaddies own web-site, I can store up to 10 courses at any one time. If I'm visiting a different course, I simply remove one and add the new one.

Occasionaly when I connect the Skycaddie, there is a software update and this will automatically update while it is connected.

I would recommend some sort of subscription, as the courses are all over the world (do you ever play abroad?).

Don't be put off, the Skycaddy is a great gadget. Probably the best Golf GPS out there at the moment.

I actually do play that few courses! In the last 10 years, I doubt I have played more than 6 courses. So the membership schemes offered just do not make sense for me. If I can indeed just do one year and then not reconnect yet maintain my courses, I'll just do that.

John Corbett:
It just seems silly to me that the SG2/3/4 are sold as having this intelligreen feature etc and that makes it better than the sg1. And do not worry, you need not pay subscription if you map your own course. It then conveniently neglects that if you do this, you have just wasted your money buying an sg2/3/4 instead of the sg1! I really dont expect anything for free - I just think skycaddie are forgetting that many of us do not care for web storage or oodles of courses - we just want one or two and that is the lot. In recent times, the price differential UK/US has dropped significantly. I used to buy a lot from the US but costs normally make it too expensive these days - skycaddie is one of the few exceptions I have found recently and I see no real reason for such a large difference.

I feel a bit better knowing that courses would not actually find themselves deleted from a skycaddie even when membership expires. That being the case it basically means I pay a one off £30 to buy my course map.

Still a bit concerned on the warranty - almost all of the stuff I have bought from a major company will be covered wherever you are. Many people move around a lot for work reasons - it is not all that uncommon in our modern global market.

I have done some more reading and I have read a lot of people who question the accuracy. What are the views on here? I am reading that it is no better than +/- 6 yards....

The accuracy of GPS is always being questioned, officially NASA say that it is accuarate to within 15 metres (50 feet), so wouldn't be much good for golf. However there are plenty of people that use them so they must be accurate enough for them. I think the figure of 15 metres is worst case scenario (only using 3 satellites)

I have a GPS watch (for running and cycle training), when I feed these routes into Google earth I can tell which side of the road I ran/cycled on, so its plenty accurate enough for me.

More accurate than most club golfers knowledge of how far they hit each club!

You know..I have often wondered this!

I initially thought the US military deliberately built in an error to the GPS systems that prevented anyone without a suitably encrypted receiver from getting a true 100% location. This was done to prevent terrorist launched rockets with GPS tracking systems from finding their actual targets.

The honest answer is that unless someone actually compares the distances shown on a GPS unit with those given by a Laser Rangefinder..then we'll probably never know. I thought I had read somewhere that these golf units are accurate to +- 1 yard.

Ultimately, though..it depends on the number of satellites you are locked to..the more the better.

As an example, I played my home course on Saturday with my Skycaddie SG3 and one of my playing partners had a Caddy. I was regularly locked to 11 satellites, whilst his seemed to max out at 7. There was consistently between 5 - 7 yards difference between his unit and my own. Now I know Skycaddie have professionally mapped my course, but do not know where Caddy get their information from. If like the Sureshot, they get their information from OS maps and aerial photography, then that might explain the discrepancy.

OK..I just checked and the Caddy is from the same stable as the Sureshot..which means they *do* use aerial photos and OS maps!

However..can I for 100% say the Skycaddie was more accurate than the Caddy?? As stated..not without verifying distances with a Rangefinder!!

The Skycaddie website states in its FAQ about GPS accuracy

"The SkyCaddie is very accurate and provides distances to more critical targets than other methods. The SkyCaddie was designed for golfers and has proprietary improvements to make GPS work exceptionally well in the unique environment of a golf course. In fact, professionals who play the Tight Lies Tour have selected it for use. With thousands of users, no one has complained about accuracy, but many have reported finding errors with markers and sprinkler heads on golf courses."

I suspect they are avoiding answering the question ;o)

I have found my Skycaddie to be very accurate, I believe they use differencial GPS, dont ask me what that is but it will do for me, there isnt anything else out there that can do what this baby does, all of the others that seem to advertising loads of courses use photos from the internet, at least Skycaddie visit the course and have proper people measuring(if thats what they do).
AND the Intelligreen is fantastic, Im never on the right fairway but I always know what the front and back of the green measurements are even if Im hitting blind over trees!! now thats just the best.
I just play my golf, trust my "Caddie" from the Sky and hit the ball, it works, Im not interested in trying to find something wrong with it.............there is too much wrong with my game that I need to put right

..."has anyone had a tough time getting the committee to agree to allow the use of rangefinders??
if so let me know and I will tell you what me and my pals told em!!!"

I know it's going back a few months but I would be interested in some experiences of getting committees to allow these for use in competitions.
I can't see any difference in relation to the rules between using a SkyCaddie or using a Course planner / yardage markers.

But we all know what committees are like !

Easy, the difference between using GPS and Course planner is about 30 seconds per yardage!!

Ian, what's that got to do with the committee ? (or the rules)

The committe have to pass a local rule allowing their use in comps!

Ours made this rule pretty quickly when they stated selling them in the Pro Shop!! £££££££££

Yep,

I'm having a tough time getting the Skycaddie allowed.

A couple of the committee members are in favour of them, but a couple are resolutely not. In fact one of the committee stated to me that "it would provide an advantage to those that could afford them", to which I countered " so I guess you'll be banning square drivers as well then"

Probably didn't do my cause any favours with that one ;o)