PAR_6
Senior Golfer
It seems fast to me. Once you get to your ball it's ready. Pretty accurate as far as I'm concerned.
Garmin Approach G6
It seems fast to me. Once you get to your ball it's ready. Pretty accurate as far as I'm concerned.
JohnEB
New member
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2011
- Messages
- 358
- Reaction score
- 2
- Location
- Chicago Western Surburbs
- Handicap
- mind game
During play, my G6 gets a fix within a second or two. If I look at it while walking to the ball, when I stop at the ball it is always within a couple yards instantly, sometimes updates one or two more yards once I stop (e.g., walk to ball, reads 198yds, 1/2 second pause, then steady 200yds). During 10 rounds, it has not once frozen on me.
It gets initial satellite lock quickly after I turn it on -- <10 seconds 90% of the time, and never has taken more than 30 seconds. That's on start up (on range or by the 1st tee).
I don't have independent measure of accuracy (no laser range finder), but the on-course markers (200, 150, 100), are always within 2 yds, and 90% of time within 1 yard.
PAR_6
Senior Golfer
Has anyone ever looked at the number of miles walked on the G6. It shows up when look look at a scorecard using history from the main screen. What kind of reading do you get. I just noticed this and its got to be off. It says I walked like 50 miles during a round
Nuttz4Sports
New member
I have noticed that too, but I think it is reflecting the total cumulative miles walked for all rounds played using the G6
edit: just learned there is a recent software update available at Garmin's website which addresses this issue.
JohnEB
New member
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- Jun 19, 2011
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- Chicago Western Surburbs
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- mind game
Yes, I have used that, and it has been very reasonable -- around 3 miles per nine holes.
What I have noticed, it that if I start looking at the course from, say home, or forget to tell the G6 that my round has ended, it will continue to count the distance traveled while I am driving too/from the course.
Although, I did update my device since I purchased it, so maybe I already have the fix that Nuttz4Sports mentions.
JohnEB
New member
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2011
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- 358
- Reaction score
- 2
- Location
- Chicago Western Surburbs
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- mind game
I've been very pleased with my G6, but I had my first really weird experience today. My friend and I both teed off, and we went up to our balls and I was just a couple yards behind him. I checked my distance, and G6 read 212 yards, which I thought was a bit short, but okay. Then I took two steps up to his ball, and the G6 read 232 yards. I stepped back to my ball again, and now it read 230 yards?? I had been watching the yardage as we drove the cart up to the balls, and thought I waited over mine for a few seconds while it read 212 without changing. Up to this point, the readings have been pretty consistent, maybe jumping by a few yards if I walked away from a spot and back to it again, but never this much.
TripleBogieTim
Long lost sheep
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2010
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- 22,240
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- Houston, Texas, United States
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- my swing
Dude, that's one loong course....LOL
mikedean441
6X HOF
even the way I spray the ball, 50 miles seems a bit of a stretch lol
PAR_6
Senior Golfer
I got the update yesterday. I will have to keep an eye on the miles after my next round.
waz84
Member
Had my Garmin for a week now. Found it great help on new courses, can easily see the overview of the whole and quick distances to all targets. Espically helpful when I have a blind shot and can't see the pin to get a distance with my Bushnell. Only issue I had is on some holes I found the distances to 5-10 yards off compared to my rangefinder. Not sure why but thought it would be really accurate, anyone else notice this?
Tedfroop
One eyed and left handed
Yes I noticed it on my first round with my g6. It was only a couple holes, but thats why the laser stays in the bag. I am off to a different course this week and we will see how accurate it is there.
All in all so far I would have to say the manual is the most disappointing part. Features are either not well explained or not explained at all. Things like the battery meter and scoring options are not fully explained. Because I had not tried it prior to getting to the course I did not enter stats other than the score. Shot length measuring was not adequately explained either - hold the button vs. press the button...
As for the rest, it works great. Trained up in the time it took to walk/run to the first tee. Showed yardage pretty much instantly when I stopped and everything else I expected. Updating was a breeze - just make sure if you are running Win7 to right click and run it as administrator. The score viewer was also excellent and the web style viewer on the unit was great and easy to see. I have yet to see what the scoring stats look like as I didn't have them turned on for the first round I used it.
All in all so far I would have to say the manual is the most disappointing part. Features are either not well explained or not explained at all. Things like the battery meter and scoring options are not fully explained. Because I had not tried it prior to getting to the course I did not enter stats other than the score. Shot length measuring was not adequately explained either - hold the button vs. press the button...
As for the rest, it works great. Trained up in the time it took to walk/run to the first tee. Showed yardage pretty much instantly when I stopped and everything else I expected. Updating was a breeze - just make sure if you are running Win7 to right click and run it as administrator. The score viewer was also excellent and the web style viewer on the unit was great and easy to see. I have yet to see what the scoring stats look like as I didn't have them turned on for the first round I used it.
Bought a G6 today and kind of wish I had got the SGX. I like the screen on the SGX better and wonder if it would be the more accurate of the two.
waz84
Member
I used to have a SGX and the reason I went for the Garmin was the size. The SGX is huge in comparison and I prefer the touch screen to the joystick on the SGX to be honest. Main thing I like about the SGX is the states tracking on CLUBSG online. Main issue was that half of the local courses don't make advantage of the SGX
's premium features. All the courses I have played with G6 have the correct overview out the box and no charges!
's premium features. All the courses I have played with G6 have the correct overview out the box and no charges!
Used the g6 yesterday and shot my 2nd best ever (80), there were quite a few times where I would have been almost 2 clubs short/long that it REALLY helped. I checked it with a some of the par 3 yardage markers (in the tee box) and it was spot on, always the same or +/- 1 yard, I've checked those same markers with a friend's v2 and they are accurate. I actually like the size/look of the SGx better, but overall I couldn't be happier with the g6.
waz84
Member
word of advice, the screen gets easily marked. I had one of those castle tees in my pocket and it marked the screen badly, get a screen protector on that screen!
ThinkRationally
New member
- Joined
- May 28, 2011
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- 45
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I've had my G6 out for 2 rounds now, and here's a little review.
First, it's small. It fits easily in the palm of your hand. The unit itself feels well-built, and the belt clip is rugged-feeling. I hang it from my pull cart using the belt
clip.
The first BAD thing I noticed are the rubber caps for the ports on the bottom. The right one seats well, but the USB cap does not. It kind of just hangs on if you press
straight down on it. I'm not sure I trust it to stay put in the rain. Although it hasn't popped off yet, it feels like it could just open on its own. The cap can't get lost
because it's attached, but it could allow water in. So far, this is the biggest design blunder I've found.
Battery:
After 2 rounds it was down to 18%. I probably could not have gotten another 18 out it--maybe 9. The backlight was at full brightness, 15 second delay on dimming the display,
and entering my scores. I did some touch targeting and that sort of thing as well. 2 rounds is fine with me, since I won't be playing 3 in a day (very often). I would prefer
AA batteries, since you can just rotate a couple of sets and never have to worry about it, but the unit would have had to be bigger.
Helpful tip: Someone mentioned that you could not see how full the battery is when it's charging. When the unit is plugged in, it powers up. Power it off--the screen will then show a
large battery meter with a charge percentage for as long as you leave it plugged in.
Graphics and screen:
They aren't even close to photo-realistic...but I don't care. I can read it, I can touch-target to identifiable points--I'm not sure what else I need. I generally glance at
this when I need to, I don't watch movies on it. Graphics are fine for me.
I have no problem reading the screen. I've had it at full backlight brightness, and I could probably turn it down. So far, viewability is a non-issue for me.
The greens might not be shaped quite the same as you perceive them. This doesn't bother me too much. I touch-target the pin to about where it is and that's more than good
enough for me. Compared to guessing how deep a green is, it's great (greens are generally deeper front-to-back than you think, and so the yardage difference from
center-green is more than I would typically estimate).
Accuracy:
I haven't actually done many precise comparisons. From a 200 yard marker, it was only 1-2 yards different. They plot the courses from satellite images, but it seems to me
like it's quite accurate. I've only had it out on one course so far.
Scoring Feature:
I've started keeping my score on the G6. It's easy. Just press the score button and it goes to the hole you're on. If you need to change holes, just cycle through them.
Entering the score, putts, and fairway hit/miss takes seconds. You can edit it later if you need to. So far, I've only used it for stroke play for one player.
Other goodies:
I use the measure feature now and then. It's easy, too--just hold down the Score/Measure button, stand by where you hit from and press Begin Measuring on the screen. If it's
not at zero, make sure you hit Reset--I once hit a 637 yard drive because I didn't reset the counter to zero. It starts ticking off yards, which you can watch as you walk
(you can leave this measure display on, or exit it and get other yardages and then return to it when you get to your ball). You don't have to walk directly to your ball.
Once you get to your ball, you can choose to save the measurement for whatever club you hit.
Green view can be entered at any time for a hole. Before I hit my approach shots, I go to green view and place the pin appropriately. You can then leave greenview and it will
still target the pin position you selected.
Touch-targeting is easy. Just touch a spot on the hole and it'll give yardage to that spot. I have a screen protector on mine (highly recommended) and use a tee for touching
the screen. This works great, and allows for accurate touches. I did get into a situation a couple of times where I had multiple points marked and red lines going here and
there. When touch-targeting, it goes to a new view and you need to back out with the little arrow in the bottom left to return to the hole cleared of points. If you don't do
this, and touch again, I think you go "2 screens deep" and have to back out of both to clear the touches. I'm not sure here, but that seems to be what happened. In any
event, I was able to get out of it once I saw all the red lines and target circles.
Statistics:
This is a bit of a let-down. You can really only see stats for one round at at time. I would like to see my overall stats. I guess I'll need to get golf stats software for this and load my rounds in. But the unit allows you to enter total shots, total puts, and whether the fairway was hit or missed left or right for each hole. From this, you can get a lot of the most common stats. I haven't found where you can record sand saves or scrambling.
Minor hack:
You can view your rounds and club distances on a computer, but some people have complained that you can only do this if the G6 is attached to your computer. For anyone who is
interested, here's a way I've discovered to view these things without having the G6 connected:
Recreate part of the same directory (folder) structure you see on the G6 somewhere on your computer. It looks like this:
Garmin Approach G6
Copy all of the files under Clubs and Scorecards. This is your raw data. Every time you get more rounds or club distances, copy the files in. Just copy the entire
Golfviewer folder and everything under it over to your computer--this contains the graphics and style sheets for displaying the data. (Remember: COPY, DON'T move these files.)
Directly under "Garmin Approach G6" are two files, ClubAverageViewer.html and ScoreCardViewer.html. Copy those over to the mirror location you just created on your computer. Now just double-
click either one and you can view your scorecards and club distances without the G6 connected. (I guess you could just copy everything on the G6 for simlicity, then update Scorecards and Clubs on a regular basis.)
Overall, I really like the G6. It's my first GPS, so I can't make any comparisons. It's working great for me so far. 8.5/10--I don't like the rubber port covers, and a more detailed stats viewer would be nice--other than that, it's great. :good:
First, it's small. It fits easily in the palm of your hand. The unit itself feels well-built, and the belt clip is rugged-feeling. I hang it from my pull cart using the belt
clip.
The first BAD thing I noticed are the rubber caps for the ports on the bottom. The right one seats well, but the USB cap does not. It kind of just hangs on if you press
straight down on it. I'm not sure I trust it to stay put in the rain. Although it hasn't popped off yet, it feels like it could just open on its own. The cap can't get lost
because it's attached, but it could allow water in. So far, this is the biggest design blunder I've found.
Battery:
After 2 rounds it was down to 18%. I probably could not have gotten another 18 out it--maybe 9. The backlight was at full brightness, 15 second delay on dimming the display,
and entering my scores. I did some touch targeting and that sort of thing as well. 2 rounds is fine with me, since I won't be playing 3 in a day (very often). I would prefer
AA batteries, since you can just rotate a couple of sets and never have to worry about it, but the unit would have had to be bigger.
Helpful tip: Someone mentioned that you could not see how full the battery is when it's charging. When the unit is plugged in, it powers up. Power it off--the screen will then show a
large battery meter with a charge percentage for as long as you leave it plugged in.
Graphics and screen:
They aren't even close to photo-realistic...but I don't care. I can read it, I can touch-target to identifiable points--I'm not sure what else I need. I generally glance at
this when I need to, I don't watch movies on it. Graphics are fine for me.
I have no problem reading the screen. I've had it at full backlight brightness, and I could probably turn it down. So far, viewability is a non-issue for me.
The greens might not be shaped quite the same as you perceive them. This doesn't bother me too much. I touch-target the pin to about where it is and that's more than good
enough for me. Compared to guessing how deep a green is, it's great (greens are generally deeper front-to-back than you think, and so the yardage difference from
center-green is more than I would typically estimate).
Accuracy:
I haven't actually done many precise comparisons. From a 200 yard marker, it was only 1-2 yards different. They plot the courses from satellite images, but it seems to me
like it's quite accurate. I've only had it out on one course so far.
Scoring Feature:
I've started keeping my score on the G6. It's easy. Just press the score button and it goes to the hole you're on. If you need to change holes, just cycle through them.
Entering the score, putts, and fairway hit/miss takes seconds. You can edit it later if you need to. So far, I've only used it for stroke play for one player.
Other goodies:
I use the measure feature now and then. It's easy, too--just hold down the Score/Measure button, stand by where you hit from and press Begin Measuring on the screen. If it's
not at zero, make sure you hit Reset--I once hit a 637 yard drive because I didn't reset the counter to zero. It starts ticking off yards, which you can watch as you walk
(you can leave this measure display on, or exit it and get other yardages and then return to it when you get to your ball). You don't have to walk directly to your ball.
Once you get to your ball, you can choose to save the measurement for whatever club you hit.
Green view can be entered at any time for a hole. Before I hit my approach shots, I go to green view and place the pin appropriately. You can then leave greenview and it will
still target the pin position you selected.
Touch-targeting is easy. Just touch a spot on the hole and it'll give yardage to that spot. I have a screen protector on mine (highly recommended) and use a tee for touching
the screen. This works great, and allows for accurate touches. I did get into a situation a couple of times where I had multiple points marked and red lines going here and
there. When touch-targeting, it goes to a new view and you need to back out with the little arrow in the bottom left to return to the hole cleared of points. If you don't do
this, and touch again, I think you go "2 screens deep" and have to back out of both to clear the touches. I'm not sure here, but that seems to be what happened. In any
event, I was able to get out of it once I saw all the red lines and target circles.
Statistics:
This is a bit of a let-down. You can really only see stats for one round at at time. I would like to see my overall stats. I guess I'll need to get golf stats software for this and load my rounds in. But the unit allows you to enter total shots, total puts, and whether the fairway was hit or missed left or right for each hole. From this, you can get a lot of the most common stats. I haven't found where you can record sand saves or scrambling.
Minor hack:
You can view your rounds and club distances on a computer, but some people have complained that you can only do this if the G6 is attached to your computer. For anyone who is
interested, here's a way I've discovered to view these things without having the G6 connected:
Recreate part of the same directory (folder) structure you see on the G6 somewhere on your computer. It looks like this:
Garmin Approach G6
Garmin
Data
Clubs
Scorecards
Golfviewer
Copy all of the files under Clubs and Scorecards. This is your raw data. Every time you get more rounds or club distances, copy the files in. Just copy the entire
Golfviewer folder and everything under it over to your computer--this contains the graphics and style sheets for displaying the data. (Remember: COPY, DON'T move these files.)
Directly under "Garmin Approach G6" are two files, ClubAverageViewer.html and ScoreCardViewer.html. Copy those over to the mirror location you just created on your computer. Now just double-
click either one and you can view your scorecards and club distances without the G6 connected. (I guess you could just copy everything on the G6 for simlicity, then update Scorecards and Clubs on a regular basis.)
Overall, I really like the G6. It's my first GPS, so I can't make any comparisons. It's working great for me so far. 8.5/10--I don't like the rubber port covers, and a more detailed stats viewer would be nice--other than that, it's great. :good:
Tedfroop
One eyed and left handed
Another undocumented feature:
With the unit connected to a computer open the drive for the G6.
Open the Garmin folder.
Edit the "startup' file.
You can add a message (where indicated) that shows at boot and change the how long the startup screen displaying the message is shown.
With the unit connected to a computer open the drive for the G6.
Open the Garmin folder.
Edit the "startup' file.
You can add a message (where indicated) that shows at boot and change the how long the startup screen displaying the message is shown.
Awesome, I'm going to do this and it will end up being something stupid and immature. lol
Danilo
Master Blaster!!
I got to play 9 with a guy that had a G6 today, and I must say that I was quite impressed with it for the little bit of time I messed around with it.
Seems like it's pretty accurate, and it was great in the sun. Nice unit for sure.
Seems like it's pretty accurate, and it was great in the sun. Nice unit for sure.
TJSlayer
New member
I'm thinking of changing from my SGX to this as the scoring and club tracking kicks the sgx's butt
TJSlayer
New member
Well sold the SGX and ordered the G6 will let you know my thoughts
TJSlayer
New member
Well got the G6 today and so far I can say wow is it small compared to the SGX, screen is decent but not fantastic touch response is good, and controls seem pretty easy, will let you know my thoughts of it on the course soon...
crazygolfnut
Let's have fun out there!
my big concern is the small screen. I wear single vision glasses on the course and have trouble seeing small print. Just wondering how difficult it is for old guys with bad eyes?
PAR_6
Senior Golfer
I am in the same boat eye wise (60 yrs) and I can see the G6 ok. If you look up the history after a round some of that print is a little harder to see but during the round the yardages are pretty easy. I wear progressive lenses off of the course and single vision on the course also.