Well, the folks from Starter Coin think they’ve brought order to chaos. They call it “the gentleman’s way to start the gentleman’s game.” The Starter Coin is a two-sided, well, coin, with markings to indicate the order of play. Simply gather your foursome around, flip the coin, let it land and the markings do the dirty work of establishing teeing order.

On one side, the Starter Coin contains the word “Honor” in the center, written as an ambigram (I’ll leave that one for you to Google). On the reverse, there is a standard magnetic removable ball marker in the center, with one of several possible phrases. Mine says, “the proof is in the putting,” but there are several others, including my favorite, “your honor, your honor.”

The coin is very well made. It’s nice and heavy, and clearly not some cheap, glorified poker chip. If you’re the type of person that likes to use a ridiculously huge ball marker, then the coin will work well for that. You can see the size of the Starter Coin in relation to a golf ball in the photo above. If that’s a bit much marker for you to handle, there’s always the embedded marker. It’s kind of like those huge yachts that are so big that they actually have smaller boats riding on them.

The Starter Coin is definitely a classy accessory. The green and white color scheme is perfectly complemented with gold-colored, raised text and accents.

The Starter Coin sells for $12 with free shipping. Visit the website for details. In addition, check out the Starter Coin album in the Life in the Rough photo gallery for more photos of the Starter Coin.

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Disclosure: A Starter Coin was provided to me for review purposes.

© 2007-2011 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Accessory Review: Starter Coin

As most of us know, swing thoughts are an important part of the golf swing.  Keeping out the mental clutter is critical to remaining focused on a single swing thought.  Keeping focused on a single swing thought is sometimes easier said than done, however, as our minds tend to wander.

According to Scott:

For years I carried a small piece of paper in my right pocket when playing golf. I would write a swing thought or two on the paper. Something to keep me thinking about simple swing thoughts, instead of letting my head go nuts and think about too many things. Every time I would reach in my pocket to get a tee or a ball marker, I would feel the paper and pull it out to give me another little reminder.

Out of a sound sleep Scott awoke and hatched out the concept of Swing Reminders.  In his words, “Swing Reminders is a simple system of hardwood tokens and accompanying tips booklet to help you focus on the aspects of the game you want to improve.”

There are 25 tokens, about the size of a poker chip, each with a different swing thought printed on each side.  When you identify your swing thought for the day, simply drop that token in your pocket and head out for the round.  Your swing thought will be right there with you for the entire round.  Every time you reach into your pocket to get a ball or tee or to mark your ball on the green, you can refer to the token for reinforcement.

The Good

• The presence of the token really does help reinforce a particular swing thought.  I found that when I reach in to my pocket and feel the token in there, I don’t necessarily even need to pull it out and look at it because I’ve already associated it with a particular thought for the day.  In my case, “TEMPO TEMPO TEMPO”.
• The tokens are an attractive hardwood and feel very smooth and are quite light so that carrying one in one in a front pocket is comfortable, and if fact it’s hard to notice that it’s there until you reach in for a ball or tee.
• The tokens do perfect double duty as ball markers.  Every time you mark your ball, you see the reminder.
• There is a one-year limited warranty on Swing Reminders.
• Swing Reminders comes with a tip booklet giving information on each swing thought, helping you to understand the significance of each.

The Bad

• While I have had no trouble with durability, I wonder if molded plastic would not be more durable over the long term.  I do like the feel and the light weight of the wood tokens, though.
• While there are 50 individual thoughts in each set of Swing Reminders, someone somewhere is bound to have a swing thought in mind that isn’t included.  It seems to include all the ones that came to my mind, but be aware that there’s a small chance that an unusual swing thought might not be there.

Conclusion

Swing Reminders is a cool product that serves a big need in the mental game of golf.  Keeping a focused swing thought or even just a thought for the round isn’t easy with all the things we need to think about and the problem is compounded during pauses in play when we might find our minds wandering.

Swing Reminders definitely does what it claims.  If you’re a player that struggles with keeping focused on a swing thought, I think this product will help you.  I know I’ll be keeping the “TEMPO TEMPO TEMPO” reminder token in my pocket every time I hit the links.

Swing Reminders retails for $16.99.  For more information, visit the Swing Reminders website.

© 2007-2011 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Accessory Review: Swing Reminders

The Golfing Caddy®

Occasionally, I have a chance to try out and review cool golf accessories.  The Golfing Caddy® definitely fits into the “cool” category.  I can’t put it any better than the folks over at BVT Products.  They describe The Golfing Caddy as follows: “The Golfing Caddy® is a multi-compartment tote and beverage holder that easily clips to the golf bag and has a handy place for everything a golfer would need to carry.”

The Golfing Caddy was designed for convenience.  It gives a player an easy way to store the things that need to be taken on the course or to the range, but that don’t normally stay with the golf bag.  Keys, wallet, cell phone, and water bottle.  There’s room for it all.

Let’s take a look at what The Golfing Caddy offers.

Features

The Golfing Caddy boasts the following features (the letters correspond to the image to the right):

• A – Room for up to a 24 oz water bottle with insulated neoprene sleeve, to help keep the bottle cool.
• B – Deep front pocket with velcro closure to keep valuables secure while on the course or at the range.
• C – Sturdy clip to attach The Golfing Caddy to your bag.  It also holds the carrying strap which allows you to easily take it wherever you need.
• D – Pleated pouch with plenty of room to store a phone, glasses, balls, tees, and so on.
• E – Durable clip (similar to a climbing carabiner).  Perfect for holding car keys.
• F – 12″ x 12″ microfiber towel.

The Good

• I found The Golfing Caddy to be very convenient to hold my keys, wallet, and water bottle.  Even though I normally refuse to take my cell phone onto the course, I took it with me to see how The Golfing Caddy would handle it all.  It was no problem.
• The neoprene sleeve was nice to help keep my bottled water cool.  It was hard to tell how effective it really is because the weather hasn’t been warm for a while, but the bottle stayed cool until I drank it all (about 6 holes).
• The clip for keys is very convenient for me.  I actually went so far as to get a similar clip for my key ring several years back so that I could just clip it to my bag when I’m practicing.  This is a feature I’ll definitely use.
• Having the stuff that I’m going to take with me in one place after I drop my clubs in the trunk is quite nice and saves the annoyance of digging around my bag to retrieve my wallet, keys, etc.
• The 12″ x 12″ towel is very handy to wipe off golf balls and club faces.  I recently reviewed FiZ Golf club/ball cleaner, and it was very nice to clip that to The Golfing Caddy and make use of the towel for my cleaning needs.  The two products go together well.
• The Golfing Caddy seems quite well made and durable.

The Bad

• The water bottle holder is a central feature of the design (in fact, it could really be considered a water bottle holder with lots of other cool features), but if you use a golf cart, it’s actually less convenient because your water bottle is back on your bag, when there are usually more convenient cup holders in most carts.  However, there are two considerations:  I didn’t try this during my evaluation, but it occurs to me that it might be possible to clip The Golfing Caddy somewhere in the passenger area of the cart, nullifying that issue.  The second consideration is that The Golfing Caddy can certainly accommodate a slightly bigger bottle than most cart cup holders.

Conclusion

The Golfing Caddy is quite a useful accessory.  With the ability to store wallet, keys, cell phone, water bottle (especially when not riding in a cart), and more, it gives players the convenience of storing all the the stuff that doesn’t stay with the clubs.  No more searching around at the end of the round to find everything.  No more rummaging around in the bag for money when the refreshment cart comes around.

I found The Golfing Caddy to be quite a helpful accessory and I recommend it.  It retails for $19.99.  For more information, visit The Golfing Caddy website.

© 2007-2011 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Accessory Review: The Golfing Caddy

Well, FiZ Golf believe they have the answer.

FiZ Golf - Giving you a "Scientific Spit Shine"

FiZ Golf is a complete club, ball, and grip cleaning solution.  It consists of a small can of patented foaming (and fizzing, of course) solution that helps lift dirt and grass out of grooves, ball dimples, and off of club faces.  The bottom of the small canister is a set of plastic bristles that you use to give the club or ball a little light scrubbing to get to the hard to reach grime.

All that is required to get your club face clean is a quick spray, a few light scrubs with the bristles, and a quick wipe with your golf towel.

One FiZ Golf canister lasts up to about 350 sprays, or about 100 holes.  FiZ Golf retails for $9.99.

The Good

• The product is extremely compact.  At only five inches tall, and an inch in diameter, it’s a lot of cleaning in a small package.
• The loop in the cap makes it easy to hang on the outside of a golf bag for easy access.  This is a make or break feature for me.  If I had to dig for it in my bag, I’d probably never use it.
• FiZ Golf is very effective at getting club faces clean with less work.  If you read regularly, you know I’ve been off the course with an injury for a while.  I’ve just now gotten back to the driving range recently, and that’s where I put FiZ Golf through the ringer.  After hitting my 7-iron 20-30 times, I gave it a shot of spray, scrubbed a little with the bristles, gave the club face a wipe with my towel, and was amazed at how well it worked.  There was a tiny bit of dirt left in the grooves that I cleaned up with a second treatment, but that was really due to the amount of crud I accumulated after so many shots.  Cleaning my 4-iron after 5 shots worked perfectly on the first treatment.
• It sounds like work to spray and scrub and wipe, but it’s much more effective than my normal routine of scraping out the dirt with a tee and using water or saliva plus my towel to get the face reasonably clean.
• The silver dimpled can and green lid/bristles make it a nice looking product.  Not only that, but the cap is made to accommodate logos on each side, so it could make a great tournament prize.

The Bad

• Believe it or not, it takes a little practice to not overload the club with the foaming solution the first several times.  It literally takes like a fraction of a second of pressing the button down to get enough.  My first canister isn’t empty yet, but I can already tell that it’s not going to come close to 350 sprays because I used it like a fire extinguisher at first.
• The retail price of $9.99 feels kind of marginally high priced.  I think it’s just a psychological hangup on my part (“How much for that little canister to clean my clubs?!”).  FiZ Golf is well made and effective though, so at over 100 holes per canister, that’s less than $2 per round.  It’s just a perception thing, I think.  If they sold a 10-hole canister for $1, I’d probably be saying, “what a great deal!”

Conclusion

Without a doubt, FiZ Golf is a cool accessory that just about every golfer should have.  Any golfer that values clean clubs, that is.  It’s very effective and easy to use.  I know I whined a little about the price, but I think it provides sufficient value for the money.

FiZ Golf is a product that I’m definitely going to continue to use.  I recommend giving it a try.

For more information, visit the Fiz Golf website at http://www.fizgolf.com

© 2007-2011 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Accessory Review: FiZ Golf

According to the ClubzUp website:

If you’re a golfer, you’ve probably lost a club on the course. This can happen when you take more than one club with you for a shot, especially around the greens. It’s common to take a shot; lay your club down, putt, and end up leaving your club behind. Driving back to the players behind you to ask if they’ve seen your club interrupts your game and if you can’t find it… it could cost you $100 to $200 a new club.

Aside from helping you to remember to grab your clubs, keeping your grips out of the wet grass is a breeze, as well.

Let’s take a look at the good and the bad that I found while testing ClubzUp.

The Good

• ClubzUp is very easy to use. I use grips that are a little fatter than standard and it still fit nicely over the end and stayed there.
• It works just as expected. It was easy to stick the ClubzUp into the turf, and my wedges stood up with no trouble.
• If you play early in the morning or when it has recently rained (naturally or artificially), the ClubzUp is great for keeping your grips out of the wet grass. As seen in the photo above, it’s easy to stand up one club and lean additional ones against it.
• Having the club standing up beside the green does help you notice that your club is waiting to be picked up. I’m pretty good with remembering to pick up my clubs (after having lost a few over the years) but the ClubzUp made certain that I saw my club right away and didn’t have to rely on my memory. I found that I saw my club standing there before I remembering to pick it up, just about every time.

The Bad

• ClubzUp is really not beneficial for players who primarily walk the course. I rarely use a cart (as I did when I evaluated the ClubzUp), and when I’m walking I never have to worry about leaving clubs or leaving grips in the wet grass because I have my bag right there all the time, except when I’m putting.
• The price feels a bit high at $9.99 for the ClubzUp or $14.99 for the ClubzUp with a bag/belt clip. While it seems well-made, it’s still just a piece of molded plastic. However, if it’s sufficiently durable, then $9.99 is a small price to pay if you have a tendency to lose clubs around the greens or if you hate having wet grips as I do.
• I didn’t have the version with the belt clip, so I kept it in my front pocket and found that it was slightly bulky in there. If I had left it in the cart or on/in my bag, I never would have remembered to grab it. While it was slightly bulky, I got used to it after a few holes and it didn’t bother me. I’d recommend investing in the belt clip.

Conclusion

In my test round, I found that the ClubzUp performed exactly as advertised. It was easy to use, kept my wedges visible around the greens, and kept the grips dry by keeping them out of the grass.

If you’re primarily a cart player, I think you’ll like the ClubzUp. This is especially true if you’re one those players that tends to leave clubs behind after putting out. The $9.99 price tag is a small price to pay if you’ve lost even one club in a bout of forgetfulness.

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Further Reading:

ClubzUp Website

© 2007-2011 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Accessory Review: ClubzUp

As I sit here now, reviewing my own experiences with the product, I don’t have a ton to add to my original thoughts.

I can recall one bad experience I had throughout the summer. It was a very hot and humid day where there was a lot of haze. Almost to the point where it was starting to feel overcast.

The unit had a little trouble communicating with enough satellites to get an accurate reading. Yardages were somewhat slow to display after I had been moving around. After I stopped and stood still, the yardages still changed for several seconds as the SG4 slowly refined its reading.

There were a couple of times that day that I felt that the final yardages were off, too.

With all that said, I didn’t experience that regularly. Also, I don’t recall having any problems on cloudy days. My gut feeling is that the problems that day maybe came from distortion in the atmosphere from the high amount of heat, humidity, and haze.

If it wasn’t that, I don’t know what it was. It certainly was the exception, not the rule.

Another thing I noticed was, as the season progressed, I was relying on the unit somewhat less. When I first got it, of course it was a new toy so I was getting yardage for every shot and was measuring the actual distance traveled for most shots.

As time wore on, I got to the point where I was playing more by feel. I tend to do that anyway, because at the course where I learned the game, yardage came in 50 yard increments (nothing printed on sprinkler heads) so I had to learn to play that way. If I’m standing between two yardage markers, I have good feel of the club to hit and how much power I need.

That has more to do with the style of my game than the usefulness of the device.

Another reason for that is that I play 95% of my rounds at the same course. I don’t need the SkyCaddie to tell me that I have a 9 iron left to the green after a good drive on the first hole.

I definitely got the most benefit out of the ability to measure the distance between any two points. For instance the position of the ball and then the position where it ends up after the shot, to measure the distance I hit that club. I was able to measure the distance between landmarks too. For example, I might go through a hole and note the distance from the tee to a specific point I want to lay up to, and note it down for next time. The courses the get uploaded into the unit have a lot of that info already, but not to every point on the course that I might care to know about.

To run it all down…

• I think the accuracy is pretty good. The device is easier to use than a laser, and faster.
• However, a laser helps out more as you get very close to the green, because you can get precise distance to the pin. The SG4 gives front, middle, and back, and also lets you move the cursor around on the screen to get yardages to specific points, but you have to kind of know exactly where the pin is sitting or you could be a few yards off.
• The ability to measure your own custom distances is very valuable to me.
• The SkyCaddie is reliable, with the exception of that one day I mentioned.
• I found myself using it less as time went on, only because the style of my game dictated that after the newness wore off. This was also due to the fact that I play 95% of my rounds at the same course. For players that travel around or rely on precise yardages, it would be much more valuable.

I still recommend the product. If money is the deciding factor, then you might want to save a little and go with a laser (you can save on low end ones, but high end lasers will cost the same or more than a SkyCaddie SG4).

The optimum scenario would be to have both, because each offers its own benefits. If that’s not possible, then I feel that the SkyCaddie SG4 is a solid product and worth looking at.

© 2007-2011 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

SkyCaddie SG4 Golf GPS Follow Up

I’ve had my eye on the SkyCaddie for a few years since I saw an earlier generation model featured on an infomercial on the Golf Channel. Today, I finally went ahead and bought one and gave it a 9-hole test run this afternoon.

Features

• The SkyCaddie uses GPS satellites to give accurate yardages to the green from anywhere on the course.
• There are thousands of pre-mapped courses that can be downloaded (with a paid subscription) to the unit by connecting it to a PC with the supplied USB cable. On each hole, you can get yardages to front, middle, and back of the green from anywhere.
• Yardages continually update as you move around each hole.
• Measure the distance of any shot by pressing two buttons prior to the shot and then one button when you arrive at the ball.
• IntelliGreen feature shows an outline of each green with an arrow indicating your angle of approach.
• Cursor can be moved around the IntelliGreen display indicating the yardage from where you are to any pin placement on the green.
• Courses not available for download can be manually entered. The process is simple and takes just a few seconds on each green.
• Courses in the SkyCaddie database that are “Four Star” were professionally mapped and have additional yardages to targets like hazards including the distance to clear. It can show lay-up yardages, trees, mounds, and other course features. Also, the SG4 tells you the distance left to the green from these targets.
• Courses that haven’t been professionally mapped can be shared with others online through the SkyCaddie course database.

Conclusions

After one round, I’m absolutely thrilled with the SkyCaddie SG4. I’ve had my eye on one for a long time, and I wasn’t disappointed. Since one of my goals is meticulous stat keeping, I’ve been struggling trying to document my shot lengths for each club manually, and now the SkyCaddie comes along and does it without any trouble whatsoever. I’m also thrilled that I don’t need to wander around looking for sprinkler heads to get approximate yardages anymore. The actual SkyCaddie unit itself feels well-made, but obviously I haven’t had it long enough to comment on it’s durability. After I give it 6 months of heavy use, I’ll post a follow-up. But right now, it’s a thumbs up.

The Good

• Accurate yardages from anywhere, so far as I can tell. None of the yardages the unit gave me seemed off. But I intend to do some cross checking with my laser range finder next time out, and will report back if there are any discrepancies.
• The added target information on the “Four Star” courses is great. Even without that, though, the yardages to front, middle, and back of each green plus the ability to measure shot distances is a huge benefit.
• If you don’t want to pay for a subscription to be able to download course information from the online database, you can manually add your own custom courses
• Getting up and running out of the box was a breeze. I had no problems whatsoever. The unit is extremely easy to use. After playing around for a bit at home and after playing a few holes on the course, I was pretty familiar with most, if not all the features.
• Yardages continually update so when you need a distance, you get it instantly. I was a little worried that getting readings would take a few seconds each time, but it turned out that wasn’t the case at all. I was even wearing it clipped to my belt a little to the right of my buckle with my shirt over top of it and when I unclipped it to get a reading, there was no loss of communication at all and the yardages were instantly waiting for me.
• The unit is a very manageable size. It’s got no protruding antenna like it’s predecessors. The unit measures 4.7″ x 2.2″ x 1.3″ (about the size of one of the modern cell phones with all the e-mail and other capability, though maybe not quite so wide).

The Bad

• The price is steep. I paid $349.99. That’s pretty high, and for many people it would be hard to justify that price. I was in that boat myself, which is why I’ve been coveting it for two or three years. But I came into a few extra bucks recently, and given my overall golf goals, it seems like a good investment.
• There is a subscription fee. While it isn’t required, not subscribing deprives you of some nice features. For instance, you wouldn’t be able to download any course information from the web. You’d be forced to map out your own courses (minus the IntelliGreen capability). Aside from that you can use it to measure shot distance, but that would be about it.
• There are three tiers of membership. The lowest tier includes only courses in your state (for people in the U.S.). The middle tier includes courses all over the U.S. and the upper tier includes courses all over the world. I’m not sure how it’s delineated for people in other countries. Also, the tiered memberships vary in the number of user-defined coursed that can be stored online in the “SkyVault”. I chose the lowest tier membership because I typically play in New Jersey. That was $29.95 per year. The middle and upper tier memberships are $49.95 and $59.95, respectively.

So far, I have to say that the good definitely outweighs the bad. If you’re a serious player who relies on yardages but is sick of having to hunt down sprinklers and then pace off to your ball, then you’ll love this thing. The cost is the only real down side that I can see so far. If that’s not an issue for you, then I’d say definitely give it a try.

© 2007-2011 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Equipment Review: SkyCaddie SG4 Golf GPS