Review of Golfshot App: An Excellent All-around Golf Rangefinder

The Golfshot golf GPS app by Shotzoom software is among our picks for the five best golf GPS apps. We used it for a number of rounds in Pennsylvania and Virginia. Golfshot's claim to fame is its outstanding stats and graphics capability, but the rest of the app is also well designed and can compete with any other golf app in the Apple App Store.

Golfshot Brings It All Together in a Well-designed App

Golfshot's course database includes more than 15,000 international courses, with more being added all the time.

The app advertises itself as being "easy to use, understand, and share," but there is a bit of a learning curve. We like the self-contained nature of the app; you can manage everything from your iPhone, and don't need to log into a web portal or platform to see your stats.

Using the Golfshot Golf GPS iPhone App

Golfshot opens with a set of options: Play Golf, Statistics, Scorecards, and Account. Selecting Play Golf uses the iPhone's GPS to find nearby courses, including their location and distance. You can also search or browse for courses elsewhere. After you arrive at a course, you can select your tee box and, if you'd like, name the golfers in your group for scorekeeping. (The app accommodates up to four players.)

It can be difficult to break the pencil-and-paper habit, but we found the scorekeeping feature to be easy to use and worthwhile. The scorecard is automatically emailed to you when you finish your round. It notes fairways hit and number of putts, and opens the door to Golfshot's excellent stats and graphics features.

Based on your scoring and course selection, Golfshot automatically calculates greens in regulation, sand saves, and scrambling percentages. The app presents the data in elegant pie graphs—but only for you, not the others in your group. However, you can enter the number of putts per hole for others in your group.

An auto-handicapping feature may also be turned on or off. Scoring is done via a touch and spin-wheel interface that is a pleasure to use.

Golfshot on the Course

When you start to play, Golfshot presents you with a number of yardages. These depend on the hole distance and layout, and include distances to the pin, bunker and water carries, and layup distances. We like the layup distances feature. You'll feel like you have a pro caddy with you when you have all of this data at your fingertips.

If you wish, you can switch to the aerial view. (Golfshot uses aerial photographs, rather than illustrations.) The aerial image will automatically zoom in as you advance, showing the green area for your approach. You can also manually zoom in or out, or use the nifty track your last shot distance feature.

Saving, Analyzing, and Emailing Your Round

You can save your round and scorecard once you're finished. Golfshot provides ongoing score and performance data, as well as a scorecard graphic for the entire group.

Golfshot presents graphics for cumulative scoring for the last five to 20 rounds. I'm not a stats hound, but Golfshot's graphics and ease of use won me over. It provides terrific insights into your game and what you may need to work on.

We found Golfshot's accuracy on the course to be solid, often within a few yards of on-course markers.

There are some limitations to using an iPhone as a golf GPS. Keep in mind:

• The iPhone is not water-resistant, so you must protect it in wet climates.
• An iPhone is not as rugged as a dedicated golf GPS, which you can literally drench, throw around, and drop without worry.
• GPS apps for the iPhone use a lot of power. We were stretching for battery life over a single round. One key is to click the iPhone sleep button after you score each hole. Golfshot recommends some battery-stretching tips, such as turning off Bluetooth and WiFi.

One nice feature: if a call happens to come in during your round, it will interrupt the Golfshot app, but the app will resume where you left off.

There are several versions of Golfshot in the App Store, so look for "Golfshot: Golf GPS" to get the version reviewed here. Overall, Golfshot is an extremely useful, accurate, and fun-to-use app with stats and features that provide useful insights for any golf game.