Review: Shot Scope Game Tracking System

Stats That No Other System Has
If you watch PGA Tour events you will see stats that would be almost impossible for amateurs to have about their game.  All those stats can be easily gathered by a statistician and reviewing the tapes of events.  The advent of GPS game tracking systems has allowed us hacks to get closer to those types of stats about our game, but most have been limited in one of the most important areas: Putting.  Other systems track how many putts you take, but beyond that, it was mostly guessing as to how accurate with the putter you are.  Shot Scope offers stats that no other system has.   Specifically it can track your putting distances to the hole.  The knowledge of this stat alone can greatly influence our approach shots and your putting.
How does Shot Scope track shots and putts?  Shot Scope is a GPS watch based system.  You install tags in the grip of each club corresponding to the markings on the tag.  Shot Scope comes with 20 tags so that if you change out a club or two from time to time, you don’t have to change out tags.  I liked this for testing a couple different drivers while playing.   These tags mark when clubs are hit through the watch.  You don’t need to touch or tag anything, it just does it in the background.  It is as simple as turning on the watch and then playing golf.  It does take some time to acquire the course on the GPS, so turn it on well before the 1st tee, even up to 5 minutes.  If you don’t want to think about it again, you can just sync it once your round is done.
 

The Shot Scope in the “passive” mode won’t track putt distances.  You need to “actively” mark the hole.  It is really easy, when you hole out, stand over the hole and press the  button on the watch with the number of putts you took.  While this takes a little more “active” work, it also offers a whole host of stats not available in other systems.  You can now accurately get your distances on putts and approaches and if you are putting long or short more often, etc.

I am not a watch guy; I gave up wearing a watch when I got my 1st iPhone about 9 years ago.  So wearing the Shot Scope watch wasn’t something I was excited about, but the silicone banded watch wasn’t too bad, even in some pretty hot rounds in AZ.  After a few minutes of wearing it and adjusting it a couple times, it didn’t bother me for the rest of the round.  It does have a fairly close hole pattern on the band to help dial in just the right fit.

Once you complete round with the Shot Scope you can either sync it with your smartphone to see some of the basic details of your round or you can hook it up to your computer via USB to get all the details.  The app is pretty basic, you can edit some shots, add penalties and track some of your distances, but to get the full spectrum of information, you must go into the dashboard on your computer.  Once you are logged in, the information is formatted in a fairly easy to navigate charts and menus.  Things are broken down by clubs, areas of your game and history.  The charts easy to understand and just about every stat is accessible with a click or two of the mouse.

The Shot Scope GPS shot tracking system gives you information no other unit on the market can give you, especially putting stats.  It does it without tagging a unit on every shot, and it doesn’t kill your phone battery while playing either, but the watch is  noticable and the current app is limited and the desktop stats don’t allow you to socially interact with anyone else.  So even though it gives you things the other tracking systems don’t there are some features that still could be improved upon.  (I’d love to see this combined with something like a Fitbit Flex.  The smaller size and health tracking features would make this product the best on the market)

For more information: www.shotscope.com

Quick Hits
+Best Putting stats
+No Tagging shots
+No phone battery drain
+Sync to phone or desktop
+20 Small tags
+Easy to use

–Watch is a little bulky
–Lack of social sharing
–Limited app stats