Golfzon Golfwith Smart Marker Review

Golfzon Golfwith Smart Marker
Manufacturer’s site: Golfzon
On Amazon: Golfzon Golfwith Smart Marker
Grade: B
Teacher’s Comments: A surprisingly useful little gadget.

The Golfzon Golfwith Smart Marker is a poker chip sized ball marker that, when paired with the companion phone app, can be used to trigger the phone to speak the remaining distance to the green. By holding the tiny button on the Smart Marker for one second, the app also can be instructed to start the shot tracking feature.

At first, I thought the Golfzon Smart Marker would be a useless gimmick, but I have actually grown to like it. When walking a round, I keep my phone in a pocket of the bag and the Smart Marker in my trousers pocket. When I get to the ball, a quick click on the Smart Marker activates the phone, which tells me the distance. It is a very quick way to check yardages.

The downside is that clicking doesn’t offer any more useful information, such as distances to hazards and the like. That’s fine on my home course and other familiar tracks. But on a new course, I would want more information. More detailed information is available on the app, but that involves taking the phone out of the bag.

As for the Smart Marker app, it is fairly standard fare for a GPS app. It offers overhead images of the holes, and gives the distance to the front, middle and back. Tapping on the screen gives you yardages to specific locations.

I’ve had a couple of issues with the Smart Marker. First, it does not always easily shift to the next hole, especially on tight courses where fairways are closely parallel, and tees are close to the previous greens. While my dedicated Garmin unit handles my home course with aplomb, the Smart Marker sometimes just doesn’t want to make the change.

The other issue I’ve had is that the long click to track shots sometimes doesn’t work. I don’t know whether this is because I am not holding the click for the proper length of time.

This is a neat gadget and at $30 is not a bad buy.

The Golfzon Golfwith Smart Marker Review was first published October 11, 2017.