So I went to GDC 2011 and give it a try.  As you can see in the video I took, they set up a demo where you can take a few puts and see how your focus drifted in and out as you are putting.  Since I have a number of years of golf behind me, the woman monitoring the signals said that I was already doing well, but to wait an extra 1 or 2 seconds before I put once I feel I was ‘locked’ into concentration.  I tried that and sank it.  Not sure that really made the difference since I got 3 practice puts first, but you never know.

Here is the video…

And here is the ABC video.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQWBfCg91CU

Either way, I was still annoyed when it did not work.. but where it did.. the value add was great!  Knowing exactly the distance (well as exact as an iphone is going to give you) to the green is quite useful on the second shot.  1/2 way through the round, my brother downloaded bGolfMemoir and started putting in the data as we played.  Hopefully he will get out there again and get the holes we missed.  Will be curious to see how well that works.  As for me, the next time I’m out there I’ll play 18 holes and take notes as to where it worked and where it failed.  If I can get at least 80% functional, it will be worth it.

First app I tried was GolfTraxx.  When I first downloaded it, it looked like a good app. You type in you zipcode, a set of courses show up, and then you hit start.  Great!  I’m on the first tee, and this is what I see.

23k yards eh?  Time to break out Big Bertha!  Whatever.. So I get 270 at the top, but 22913 yards to the tee target.  Huh? Ok, well, perhaps I should just try another app.  I had bGolfMemoir loaded.  So on the 2nd hole, I gave it a try.  FAIL at step one.  It could not even find the golf course.  At this point, I was getting pretty mad, but I gave it one more try..  as I walked to the third hole, I downloaded Plum Caddy.  Since I had to read the description on this quickly, I did not pick up that you had to put the course information in yourself.  Grrr..

Forget it.  Next time I play, I’ll give GolfTraxx another try and disregard all info short of what I read on the top and see what happens.

On the plus side, my friend I went golfing with was have a great round.. UNTIL, 2 ladies who joined us offered him a small drink ( a sip really) from her ‘deadly sins’ flask.  After the sip, he tee’ed up and almost completely missed the ball on his drive!  The ball took off at 35deg to another hole’s tee. Ha haha.  So it was not all bad.

My brother used TrialGuru on a the remaining two holes after I did.  I think he had a some issues on the last two holes as you can see from his route.

There is a golf GPS logging program out there I’m going to try the next time out on the links.