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Golf Cart GPS: Smarter Golf Course Management That Saves Strokes

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For the majority of golfers, the desire to improve is as integral to the game as playing it in the first place, with golf cart GPS now playing a key role in the process. Whether this means chasing a lowest-ever round or lowering one’s handicap, the pursuit to become a better player is an ever-ongoing one. And while there are plenty of ways to achieve lower scores, golf course management is an easy and effective way to do so. It is an overlooked and underutilized method (particularly amongst amateur players) to enhance their games and ultimately improve as golfers.

Without changing anything on their swing, golfers can score lower by employing certain strategies and making better decisions on the course and, more importantly, how they choose to play it. In this article, we take a look at what golf course management is, some of the tactics you can follow as a social golfer, and what role golf cart GPS technology can play in this approach.

Golf Cart GPS: What Is Golf Course Management?

From a playing perspective, course management is the manner in which golfers play a golf course. It’s all about making smarter decisions while playing, which should ultimately lead to lower scores. The idea is to use the course as optimally as possible to score well, but more importantly, to avoid mistakes which could end up being a lot more costly than they need to be.

golf cart gps golfer on the course

When every shot around the course counts (and they do), weighing up different options and comparing the risk and reward aspect of those options is the essence of golf course management. For professionals, it has become such a big part of the game that there are numerous established entities whose focus is solely on helping players manage courses more efficiently. Luckily, course management does not have to be exclusively for the professionals; there are several tactics and strategies that everyday golfers can use to improve.  

Golf Cart GPS: Implementing Course Management Into Your Game

By implementing golf course management into your game, you can improve your scores by limiting mistakes and giving yourself more scoring opportunities for pars or even birdies, no matter your skill level. There are several relatively straightforward strategies to achieve this the next time you’re out on the course. While some require data analysis and introspection to achieve, it would be well worth looking into if you are serious about going lower. Here we take a look at some key strategies:

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Know Your Game

Knowing your game is about much more than merely knowing what your yardages are. While the latter is extremely important, understanding your strengths and weaknesses is just as crucial.

Knowing your shot patterns, like shape and dispersion, can be the difference between the so-called “bad misses” and “good misses”. Limiting the bad misses and, thereby, increasing good misses is a key factor in mastering course management.

Know The Course

Knowing your game is only beneficial when you know, or are at least familiar with, the course. Good courses are designed to test all golfers’ abilities, and the way designers do that is to be just as strategic in design and the setting up of the course. If you play the same course/s often, you learn the layout of each hole, where the dangers are, and how to play around them. But what should you do when you play a course you’ve never played before?

golf cart gps product pack

Aerial views often prove to be invaluable. Tagmarshal’s golf cart GPS systems are configured to, amongst other things, reflect the course’s physical layout, as well as yardages between tees and greens, edges of fairways, or the distances to hazards. With this type of technology, you can plan ahead by scoping the hole layout, seeing where the hole opens up, or not, and identifying hazards.

Start With The Tee Shot

Good course management starts on the tee box. It’s here where you assess multiple scenarios and the likelihood of each happening, considering the hole dynamics and your skills. When faced with your tee shot, there are several things to consider, like the type of shot or the distance you would prefer to have into the green. You also need to weigh whether getting the ball in play is more important than the risks of aiming for your preferred shot, since your driver may not land in the widest part of the fairway, but your 3-wood or hybrid might.

Assessing the hole and its layout, and making informed shot choices instead of blindly grabbing the big stick each time, can be pivotal for lowering your scores. A shorter club from the tee can also be the difference between having a full shot into the green, or ending up at a distance where you might be “between clubs” and needing to try to hit a half-or three-quarter swing.

Aim For The Green, Not The Pin

It’s natural to want to go straight at the pin with approach shots. It’s something we see the pros do all the time, and there is no better feeling than knocking the ball within a few feet of the pin. However, the times you see the professionals doing so are the exceptions, rather than the rule. The average approach shot distance from the flag on tour is a surprising 18 feet from 100 yards out, which becomes closer to 30 feet from longer out. In course management, there is a saying that goes, “The middle of the green never moves.”

If you’re able to hit the middle of the green, it’s highly likely that you won’t be further than 30 feet away from the pin. This beats trying to aim directly for a pin that is behind a tucked bunker, hazard, or short side of the green that results in a bad miss. It also heightens the probability of two putts, which will lead to more pars and birdies, or even bogeys over doubles and triples, if you’re a high handicap golfer.

Putt With A Strategy

golf cart gps putting

Putting is often overlooked as part of proper golf course management, yet it is as important as making the right shot selection from the tee. With some simple strategies, you can save yourself a lot of strokes on and around the greens. And like the rest of it, it requires more mental work than any major changes in the putting stroke mechanics.

Good putting management begins even before you’re on the green. Reading the green in terms of its slope and grain can be a crucial part of leaving yourself better putts to get close to the hole. On fast greens, it’s a good strategy to try to leave yourself an uphill putt. Controlling the ball is much easier than it would be on a downhill, as you can hit it firmer and take out the break. So, with long putts and chip shots around the green, try to leave the ball on those sides of the cup, rather than attacking the pin aggressively.

Adding to this is the key element of distance control. The goal on greens is not to try to sink every 20- or 30-footer, but rather to avoid the costly three putts. Smart lag putting is where you aim to get the ball to within three feet of the hole to leave yourself an easier second putt. Think about it – three feet on either side of the hole gives you a six-foot radius around the hole as your target. Try to lag it within this area and you’ll quickly notice a difference in strokes gained on the greens.

Understanding Course And Wind Conditions

golf cart gps tagmarshal windtag

A big part of golf course management is to take into account the weather circumstances on the day and adapt accordingly. Adverse weather conditions, like extreme heat, extreme cold, rain, or wind, can all have a significant impact on the way the ball will travel. This means that the same strategies for a typical day would differ from those when it’s windy or rainy.

Managing the wind, specifically, is a major underutilized strategy for amateur golfers. Most players know to factor in the wind, but they rarely know by how much. The reason for this is that it’s challenging to accurately determine how hard the wind is blowing without the proper instruments. On a golf course, wind can gust differently in one part of the course than it does in another. This is where Tagmarshal’s state-of-the-art and innovative WindTag comes into play.

This powerful feature on Tagmarshal’s golf cart GPS provides golfers with real-time wind speed and direction on every shot. In conjunction with the precise distance to the hole, the golf cart GPS technology will produce live shot recommendations to account for wind and shot trajectory in these tricky conditions. An industry first to revolutionize the way in which golfers manage and play the golf course!

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Tagmarshal’s Golf Cart GPS For Smarter Course Management

As briefly mentioned above, Tagmarshal’s golf GPS systems can be used for smarter, improved course management. Let’s take a brief look at exactly how this is achieved:

Precise Yardages: Tagmarshal provides golfers with real-time, accurate yardages to the green, hazards, and fairway edges. This eliminates guesswork and helps players make informed club decisions, decreasing the risk of costly mistakes on the course.

2Way Screen: The interactive 2Way cart and mobile screens display distances and hole layouts, as well as providing live alerts, pace updates, and recommendations. Golfers can plan shots more effectively while giving course operators a channel to communicate with players during rounds. The 2Way screen Live Map allows you to see exactly where hazards, like bunkers and water, are.

golf cart gps 2way screen

WindTag: An industry-first innovation, Tagmarshal’s WindTag feature provides hyperlocal, real-time wind speed and direction data at every shot location. The powerful tool provides golfers with live AI-powered shot recommendations that factor in the distance, club, trajectory, and target. This advantage directly translates to better scoring opportunities.

Aerial View: Detailed aerial maps mean golfers can see the layout of each hole before they play it, with hazards, landing zones, and optimal angles of approach all clear. With this, players can make smarter decisions and effectively manage unfamiliar courses.

golf cart gps 10inch live map

While these tools were designed to help course operators optimize pace and improve the flow of play, they double as a powerful resource for golfers. Players who play on Tagmarshal-powered courses gain access to professional-level insights, leading to better shot selection and course management overall. 

Final Thoughts On Smart Course Management and Golf Cart GPS

In recent years, golf course management has become more of an art; a way to score lower by working smarter, not harder. Knowing that golf is as much of a mental game as it is a physical activity is the first step in effective golf course management. It shows that you don’t have to be the best ball striker or change any swing fundamentals to shoot lower scores. It all comes down to better decision-making and thoughtful planning of each shot, balancing risk and reward, rather than just distance and power.

Incorporating technology like Tagmarshal’s golf cart GPS systems can go a long way in simplifying the art of golf course management. By equipping players with the insights and tools they need to make better decisions on every shot, like with our 2Way Screens, Live Map, WindTag, and shot recommendations, golf courses are not only improving operations for themselves, but they are actively helping members and guests play better, faster, and lower rounds.

To learn more about Tagmarshal’s AI-powered golf course technology, get in touch or book your demo today!

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ABOUT TAGMARSHAL

Tagmarshal, the market leader in on-course optimization technology, provides courses with full, real-time operational oversight and reporting, giving golf operators the tools to manage pace and flow of play effectively, resulting in enhanced player experiences, increased efficiency through automation, and additional revenue generation.

Tagmarshal’s technology has collected over 10 billion data points from more than 75 million rounds of golf and has relationships with in excess of 700 partners, including Hazeltine, Whistling Straits, Baltusrol, Fieldstone, Bandon Dunes, Serenoa and Erin Hills.

Tagmarshal partners with several golf management groups, private, daily fee, public and resort courses, including 40 of the Top 100 US courses, as well as many $40-$60 green fee courses, which are seeing excellent results using the system.

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