The Common Golfer

I purchased The Course Club’s new $1.99 iPhone app, which says it can read putts up to 3o feet by telling you where to aim.  The prospects of this really working were great.  Sure, it’s not USGA compliant and borders on cheating…but who wouldn’t want to make more putts!  Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out how to work the app properly.

The instructions are to first tell the app how long your putt is.  Next, you tell it how far along that putt the break is.  You then place the phone on the ground where the break is, with the ear piece pointed towards the hole.  The app then uses “advanced algorithms” to calculate how many balls left/right of the cup you should aim.  The biggest problem I found was figuring out where to tell the app where the break is.  Unless you’re faced with a severe, side-hill putt, there is no possible way to pinpoint a spot where the break is.  What if the putt slightly breaks the entire way?  What if the putt is mostly straight, but you can see that along the way there will be slight movement?

The first thing that came to mind, after encountering this roadblock was that it was probably user error.  I was probably to stupid to work the app properly.  But I scoured the developer’s web site, and also checked for a help section within the app, and found no additional documentation about how to properly use the app.  I also had my wife try it out on a few holes.  Granted, neither of us will be quitting our day jobs soon, but we were unable to make any putts with the assistance of the app.

The verdict?  Save your money.  I would categorize this app as one of the many gimmicks that have come out in the past for the iPhone (i.e. who’s going to use their phone to make sure things are level?).