Shopping for the Best Garmin Golf Watch? Approach S70 Makes a Strong Case
I’m not a great golfer. I can strike the ball OK, but I lack consistency and make bad decisions. If there’s a choice between laying up and going for it, I’m probably going for it, even if my chances are slim. I think I drive the ball 300 yards, but actually I’m lucky to hit it 260. If I’m unsure about which club to use, I’ll probably choose the shorter club—wrong again. In other words, I’m not a smart golfer, so I turned to a Garmin golf watch, the Approach S70, for reinforcement.
The golf-specific smartwatch promises to elevate any golfer's game through a blend of GPS-driven data and AI-enabled intellect. Well, I put it to the test to see if it stands true to its claims.
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Our Testing Process
I’ve been using the Approach S70 for three months now, tracking every round I’ve played. It’s been on my wrist as I sleep, when I walk the dog, and when I hit the practice range. This Garmin golf watch is designed with the green in mind, but it’s also a capable fitness tracker—I've relied on it to track every run, ride, and workout session.
And, yes, after three months of testing, I do think the watch has helped me become a better golfer—mostly because it's forced me to recognize the exact aspects of my game that need extra work.
What It Is: A Garmin Golf Watch Loaded With Tech
Garmin is best known for its GPS watches and satellite communicators, but the brand has developed a multitude of golf tech. There are handheld range finders, launch monitors, and a series of GPS-enabled watches designed to tell you where you’re standing on any given golf course and how far you have to hit the ball to the pin. I've used Garmin’s Golf app on its Fenix watch in the past and enjoyed the straightforward information paired with course maps.
Approach S70 is a redesign of an earlier Garmin golf watch, the Approach S62. It features 43,000 pre-loaded course maps; contour data for greens; a “plays-like distance” feature that factors in slope and wind speed for any given shot; and a Virtual Caddie that learns how well you hit each stick in your bag, then suggests a club for each shot.
Best Feature: Virtual Caddie
Virtual Caddie is where golfers like me (read: not great) will find the biggest benefit. After you start a new round and manually activate the club selection prompt, the Virtual Caddie will ask you what club you used after each shot. Upload your selections with the push of a button, and after playing five rounds, Virtual Caddie will learn how far you hit your driver or 5-iron or wedge, and recommend a specific club for any given shot you’re anguishing over.
Virtual Caddie is especially handy if you’re not familiar with the course you’re playing. Not only do you get an accurate distance that takes into account the wind and slope, but it can extrapolate to the most likely outcome of its club suggestion based on your past performance.
“I don’t know why an amateur player wouldn’t want to use it, especially on courses you don’t get to see very often,” says Scott Stallings, a PGA Pro, who just finished 60th at the Open Championship.
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It take a while for the Virtual Caddie to truly learn my game. It'll start making suggestions after five rounds, but the more rounds you play, the more carefully honed those suggestions become—because the AI has more data, giving it more accurate estimates. So, if you play five rounds and duff your 6-iron a handful of times, it’s going to assume your average distance with that club is 120 yards and suggest you pull it out of the bag on an approach shot that really requires a 9-iron or wedge. But after time, those glitches iron out.
First Impressions of Garmin's Latest Golf Watch
I’ve used the Approach S70 for 20 rounds and, at this point, I have to admit the Virtual Caddie knows my game—my strengths, weaknesses, and idiosyncrasies—better than I do. In that way, at least, it's smarter than me.
On a recent round, I was facing a 110-yard uphill approach shot. The Virtual Caddie suggested a 9-iron, but I ignored it and pulled out a wedge. The result? I came up about 15 yards short. I might be operating under delusions of grandeur regarding my club distance, but Virtual Caddie relies on cold, hard facts to make decisions.
Ultimately, I’ve found Approach S70 most useful when I’m on the course and waffling between two different clubs, which is typically when I get into trouble. It's not the Virtual Caddie’s on-course prompts that are so crucial for struggling golfers like me. My game has improved because of the data the watch collects, which is then broken down and available for me to analyze via the Garmin Golf app.
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“The S70 gives you something that can keep track of your clubs and help quantify what you do and make better decisions,” Stallings says. “And it gives you a picture of what it all looks like when you put your best foot forward and tee it up.”
Key to becoming a better golfer is knowing exactly how well you hit each shot you’ve taken. Pros tend to log this data in tiny notebooks, scribbling down info about each shot so they can compile it and run the numbers after each round. That’s the kind of rigor the Approach S70 and its Virtual Caddie have instilled in me.
If you ask me, I hit my driver 300 yards, but now I can pull up the app and see exactly how far I’ve hit every single drive in the last few months. I see that I tend to hook those drives more often than not. I see that I usually hit my driver 250 yards, not 300.
So I've given up asking myself in these matters. More important, I can also see that it’s not my drives that are holding me back. It’s my long irons, which I tend to hit fat for minimal distances. Oh, and I’m terrible at putting. Because I’ve logged every putt I’ve taken on my watch, I see that I’m putting more holes than I should.
Garmin Approach S70 Golf Watch Pros
Comfy and Intuitive
Approach S70 is easy and comfortable to wear. The user interface is fairly foolproof even for non-gearheads. I was able to discern the majority of its features during my first test round without consulting the user’s manual or videos.
Unobtrusive Face Size
Approach S70 is smaller than the Garmin Fenix I typically wear, and the size seems appropriate for the application; with a 1.4-inch screen, it’s big enough for you to clearly spot details on the map, but not so big that it swallows your wrist. Garmin makes a handsome golf watch, but it's not a luxury watch you'd wear in every social situation.
Easy to Read
The AMOLED screen is bright and easy to read—even in the sunniest conditions. The touchscreen works well, even when I’m sweaty during an afternoon round.
Detailed Golf Maps and Metrics
The maps are meticulously attuned to minutia, showing you bunkers and obstacles and giving you the projected landing spot of your shot based on the club you're swinging. When paired with the Golf app, you can even view details of the contour of each green, as long as you’re playing one of the vast array of courses (43,000!) mapped by Garmin. That kind of data can help you read the slope for long putts. Most of these features are probably unnecessary if you’re already a scratch golfer, but I’m actively trying to step up my game, and I found the watch surprisingly beneficial.
Garmin Approach S70 Golf Watch Cons
Lacks Battery Life
The battery life is merely decent when compared to the Garmin Fenix I typically wear. If I’m playing a lot of golf and using Approach S70 for other daily fitness purposes, I’ll get about a week’s worth of battery before I have to charge it.
Not terrible, but Garmin’s adventure watches manage to get about twice that battery life. I’d also like to see Garmin incorporate its solar glass into the Approach S70. Golf courses are mostly sunny when people are out playing a round or two, so why not use that sun to extend the battery's juice a bit?
Final Verdict
The end result? My game is all there for me to absorb, in a series of graphs, percentages, and spray charts. Because of that data, I’m spending less time hitting the big stick at the driving range and more time working with my 4- and 5-irons.
Yeah, I’m practicing my putting, even though it’s not exactly thrilling. Just 10 minutes at a time, a few days a week and, slowly, it's yielding gains. I’m playing the best golf I’ve played in years. Is it the watch?
Sort of. More to the point, it’s all that rich, covetable data, which the watch has helped me amass—plus the subsequent realizations that've given me a dramatically stronger understanding of my own game.
After three months of testing, I do think Garmin's new golf watch has helped me become a better, more intelligent golfer. The Approach S70's objective precision has forced me to recognize the exact aspects of my game that need extra work—and to swiftly smarten up on the course.
[From $650; amazon.com]
