18Birdies: Golf GPS Tracker

I want to use this app, I really do… but 2 things bother me. Stats have absolutely no correlation to the scores on your hole. Yeah, maybe you should just enter the accurate stats, but what if I fat finger the wrong stat and don’t notice it? You literally can record a score of a 3 but say it took 4 putts, 3 chips, 3 penalties and 2 sand shots and it is completely fine with that… why? What is the explanation? The app also lacks automatic shot tracking for every shot using your Apple Watch. It will track your drive on every hole, but after that, you have to manually remember to press track shot which just interferes with your round. If you forgot to hit track shot, you just have to wing it and hope you got it right. At least if the app dropped bread crumbs and the GPS detected your moving around the course you could go back and guesstimate. Real, true swing detection and auto shot track should be a feature. It should also correlate or at least suggest your score based on the swing locations and you should not be able to enter more stroke stats than the actual stroke you took. I really wish they would fix these features because so many other small things about this app are great. Alas… I don’t think these fixes will ever happen.

I really like the concept of this app. I had to mark down the review because of a recent situation this app has put me in. My wife has been complaining of me “spending too much time golfing” and “not having my priorities straight” shortly after downloading 18 birdies. The application works pretty well but failed to warn me of a ground hog that I domed on the head and significantly deceased his life expectancy. The concept is pretty fun but when I lined up my shot on the app, I hit a tree when I went to take the shot and had me questioning the accuracy of the app but overall it’s pretty good because I can add friends that I wouldn’t have otherwise. The more I write the more I realize that this app has significantly made my life a lot more difficult. I realized that the more time I spend using the application, the less I’ve noticed significant family matters that have appeared recently. After the ultimatum from my wife saying “it’s golf or me” I decided that things might have been taken too far. I quickly told her that my handicap would decrease on 18 birdies if I tried to prioritize her more and she left me. Since then I have been able to focus more on my game and I am currently ranking much higher than before. Overall decent platform

If you’re looking at this app versus other apps on the iPhone. Just go ahead and pick this one. You can track many of the different elements of your game and the map interface is exactly what you need. The thing that I wish it had was the ability to see par when reviewing your previous games. When you go back to a previous game and you look at an individual hole, you can’t see what par was for the hole you’re viewing. You can tap the score to view par, but then it deselects your previous score and if you weren’t paying attention, you’ll lose what you had marked there. A suggestion to the developers would be to add a lock feature to the scorecard so you can browse previous game scores without fear or changing them. Besides that little detail, this thing is great! Perhaps a calculation of the handicap for the individual courses would be helpful. Okay, I’m done. Great app. Enjoy and download this app!