Mobile Experience and the Sport of Golf

Lately, I've been bitten by the Golf bug again. I was really into this sport years back when I lived in the Golden State. This time around, I am surprised to find how this sport has advanced with technology, especially with the gadget market. The biggest gadget for this market must be the GPS-based rangefinders. Lots of hardware makers offer a dedicated GPS units with preloaded course maps to help you determine the distance between your ball and the flag. Big GPS players such as Garmin even has a serious go at this market as well.

I was more interested in the mobile applications for Golf enthuaists since most new smartphones now come with GPS already. So I took a look around the Apple App store and was able to quickly find a handful of Golf Range applications. The price range went from FREE to $34.99. Most of them will offer some form of course map (using Google Maps or else) and provide your distance to the flag. This is very cool for two reasons: 1). You can't beat the price, even for the most expensive application, its still a fraction of what you'd pay for a dedicated device and 2). You'd already have your iPhone 3G with you and you can avoid having to carry another dedicated GPS device.

For those interested, log on to the App store and search for "Golf GPS" and start to enjoy your game.