When you are like me, a golfer who changes very little equipment, a decision to change equipment is always an important event, even when it is not the equipment that is IN the bag.

My first golf watch, I bought it exactly 10 years ago, after carefully reviewing what was available at the time on the market. I had examined the Tomtoms in particular. I think it no longer exists today, and I finally opted for a Garmin.

I had given myself this gift for my birthday, and it was a beautiful gift, it seems to me that I had paid about €300.

It was a Garmin S6. It worked perfectly during all these years since I still have it today. I have already read on forums that some had GPS synchronisation problems with their Garmin. I have never had this problem with my S6.

I was very happy about it and so I had no reason to change. But now, time has got the better of its excellent quality. For some time now, the screen has been turning brown on the sides in a concentric way, this is getting closer to the centre.

I can still read the directions for sure, but his time being short, I began to be interested in an alternative.

I obviously looked at the features and prices of the current Garmin. And despite the good opinion I have of this brand, I finally chose another solution.

If I had wanted to take back a Garmin, the cheapest, by taking the entry-level on sale, it would have cost me about €200. This is the price currently displayed on the Garmin website for the current entry-level, the S12, which seems to have a little more features than my S6.

But it is still a fairly basic golf watch.

So I chose another option that has several advantages: the Apple Watch.

How will you tell me!? An Apple Watch for €200?

Obviously, at this price, I don’t have a new watch. If my budget was unlimited, I would have gladly opted for an Apple Watch Ultra 2, it’s really a watch that I find very interesting and obviously not only for golf.

But as I wanted to find an alternative at a roughly equivalent price, I quite easily found here at a small Thai dealer an Apple Watch Series 9, in impeccable condition, it is really like new and the battery capacity is 100%.

For this Apple Watch to become a golf watch, I just had to choose an application, I chose the Golf Pad application by obviously paying in addition for a premium subscription at €32/year.

I have the possibility to buy sensors (golf tags) to put on my clubs. For now I use the application without these accessories.

The big advantage I find in this watch compared to the Garmin, in addition to the aesthetics which is obviously without common measure, is that it is a real computer, an extension of my iPhone, which offers a number of interesting features, including notifications from most applications, but also sleep tracking for example or fall detection; I tested, it works very well.

I’m not going to review all the features of the Apple Watch here, there are perfectly clear YouTube videos that expose them.

I can only say of the Golf Pad application that it took me two parts to really understand how it works, especially for shot tracking. Now that I have pretty much control of these features, the combination display on the Apple Watch and phone in the pocket to adjust at the end of each hole is really very satisfying.

The assisted game with the virtual shopping cart that offers the club to use taking into account the average length that is generally done with each club, the configuration of the course and the weather conditions of the day is rather nice, and it seems to me likely to allow good progress. It’s an option to deactivate in competition, it goes without saying.

In each game the application will learn and refine these averages for each club. The advice will therefore be more and more relevant.

I plan to invest one day the additional €100 (that’s a little expensive) necessary to have the sensors to put on the different clubs.