New Equipment Measures Up
On a sunny August morning at Cape Arundel Golf Club in Kennebunkport, Maine, George Bush and his son, George W., teed off at 6 and zipped through 18 holes fast enough to make it to church by 9.
A fast round?
It helps when you have the Secret Service clearing most of the course beforehand. But Rob O’Loughlin likes to think the Laser Link Distance System, installed in advance of that round, had something to do with the pace of play.
It is the simplest of a small number of advanced range-finding systems making inroads at golf courses around the country -- designed to speed up play and help lower scores.
The inroads have been bumpy in places, though, as the measuring devices are something new in a sport reluctant to change and have yet to be approved for tournament play by the ever-reluctant U.S. Golf Assn.
“We have caddies who know the distances and we have [marked] sprinkler heads, and we know those range-finders are illegal, so that’s enough for us,” said Rick Stegall, head pro at Lakeside Golf Club in Toluca Lake. “We have a lot of traditionalists here, and they just don’t think they’re necessary.”
For the record, while it is illegal to use range finders during USGA-sanctioned tournaments, it is not illegal for caddies or pros to use them in practice rounds -- and both use them extensively.
Also, rounds during which such devices are used may be submitted for the calculation of handicaps.
O’Loughlin, who refers to his product merely as a portable sprinkler head, is gambling that range finders are here to stay. And given that marked sprinkler heads and even the 150-yard bush were once frowned upon by purists, he’s probably right.
His system involves a lightweight hand-held device called a QuikSilver, which shoots an invisible laser beam that travels to a reflector built into a flagstick. Time is calculated, converted to distance and displayed on the unit as yardage. It works from 30 to 300 yards with a negligible margin of error.
Nearly 250 mostly high-end private clubs use it, among them Medinah, Baltrusol, Cherry Hills, Crooked Stick and Castle Pines. In Southern California, it is most widely used in the Palm Springs area but taking root more locally, at such clubs as Sherwood in Thousand Oaks and Shady Canyon in Irvine.
“It’s working out very well for us,” said Brian Gunson, director of golf at Shady Canyon and a former European pro. “I worked at Turnberry in Scotland so I know about the traditionalists’ way of thinking.
“But if you look at the big picture, we’re only providing a service that helps everyone by quickening play.”
This is achieved, in theory, by eliminating the need to find a marked sprinkler head and pace the distance back to your ball.
Laser Link charges courses up to $1,500 for the reflector-fitted flagsticks and $179 for each Quicksilver unit. The clubs sell the units to players at or above the suggested retail cost of $239.
“It’s a handy little tool, and it just simplifies things,” said Jim Atwood, a member of Plantation Golf Club in Indio. “You still have to figure on wind and all the other factors, but it gives you a good solid number to start with.”
The Laser Link system -- which O’Loughlin hopes will eventually make its way onto the public links -- is considered by some course managers a cheaper alternative to those TV-like displays you might have seen inside golf carts at some courses.
Using global positioning satellite technology, they give players constant readings to not only the middle of the green but to trees, bunkers and other hazards. In some cases, players can even use them to send for the food and beverage cart. In many cases, they also carry advertisements.
The GPS screens are handy, to be sure. “On a course like ours, where we have so many canyons and other obstacles and optical illusions, it gives golfers, especially first-time players, a comfort level they couldn’t enjoy with any of the other systems,” said Hans Maissen, general manager of Pelican Hill Golf Club in Newport Beach.
These devices are also expensive: Pelican Hill paid nearly $500,000 -- more than usual but minus the ads -- to outfit its fleet of carts for 36 holes. That cost is indirectly passed onto the players, who pay green fees of $175 to $250.
The cart-based GPS systems can be extremely helpful, but when the carts must remain on the paths there’s going to be some guessing involved once players get to their balls on the other side of the fairway.
Do they quicken play? Not always. Golfers sometimes get so into the workings of the screens that they waste time pushing buttons or maneuvering the cart from ball to ball to make sure each golfer in the cart has a proper reading from his or her ball.
“Do they speed up play? I’m not sure,” Maissen said. “But they should help in the regard that we can manage the carts better by always knowing their position. For instance, if we see six carts on one hole we’ll know there’s a problem and send the players’ assistant [marshal] out and correct the problem.”
Hand-held range-finders, on the other hand, have the advantage of being with the golfer. They range in price from the cheap and often ineffective glass monoculars to expensive, advanced laser and GPS hand-held devices that actually work.
Bushnell makes the most popular laser device, and by far its most popular line is the Yardage Pro, with the Pro Tour and Pro Tour XL models most widely used by top-tier golfers.
These can be used on any course and require no reflectors and work by sending infrared beams of light and pulses to objects placed within crosshairs of the palm-sized monocular scopes.
More than 600 touring professionals and caddies -- including Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia -- have Bushnell units, the company says.
To illustrate their value, Bushnell spokeswoman Laura Olinger cited a 1999 survey during which Golf Digest tested 10 middle- to high-handicappers, asking them to judge a standard distance of 134 yards. They were off by an average of 22 yards. Ten PGA Tour pros also were surveyed, and they were off by an average of seven yards.
This is not to say the devices, which weigh less than seven ounces and cost between $350-$450, are foolproof. Even the top units require a steady hand and do not always know what the golfer is trying to measure.
Like a camera on auto-focus, they might pick up the tree behind the flag and give you that measurement instead.
Additionally, they cannot make readings on featureless terrain. So a lip of a bunker might give you a reading, but if the bunker is too flat it might not.
Said Lakeside’s Stegall: “We have some members using binoculars and we see them out there trying to determine the distance and the thing isn’t working. We have slow enough players as it is, without all that going on.”
Even Jason Seeman, a Bushnell regional sales manager, said the devices take some getting used to. But after that, he added, they’re simple and accurate well beyond 300 yards.
Then there’s the hand-held GPS unit made by SkyGolf, which lacks the obvious restrictions of the units installed in carts. The SG2 retails for $329 and represents, according to SkyGolf president Richard Edmonson, “the next-generation, simplest most powerful way to measure distances to greens and all sorts of obstacles.” The units aren’t for everyone, though, as they’re somewhat labor intensive.
For starters, you need a personal computer and available serial port to download the courses you’re interested in playing and have to buy a membership to download courses.
For $19.95 a year, for instance, you can access your five favorite courses. For an additional $10, you get all of the courses in your state. For $49.95, you get the Play America package and for $10 more, you get access international courses.
Nearly 3,000 courses -- more than 400 in the Southern California area -- have been GPS “marked” by company experts and most feature digital distance readings to layup targets, hazards and the front, back and center of greens.
“We can’t carry your bag or do much about your golf swing,” Edmonson said. “But we can give you the right information to help you think about your swing and make your best shot.”
Of course, if a club changes its layout after it has been marked, you might find yourself up a creek.