Last week I headed to the golf course to test out the Garmin Approach S44 watch. I’ve noticed a lot of people raving about Garmin watches over the years. So I was very intrigued to see if this one lived up to the hype!
When it comes to GPS golf watches, there aren’t many brands that can compete with the reputation or popularity of Garmin. The brand have been in golf for over a decade now and produce premium options which rival the likes of Bushnell, Nikon and Shot Scope.
Who Is It Aimed At?
The Approach S44 is Garmin’s cheapest GPS watch and acts like a baby brother to the beastly S70. It comes in with a price of £299.99 which is pretty reasonable these days compared to other brands. Clearly it’s still a lot of money, but for the quality and reliability of Garmin in general, the extra money and software advantages make this a very valid option to consider buying.
So if you’re on a budget but looking for a bit more premium quality, that you know is going to last, then this could be the watch for you.
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The Tech
The S44 has a stunning 1.2-inch AMOLED touchscreen display which makes it really easy to see your yardages. The S44 does yardages to the front, middle and back of greens, as well as bunkers, water hazards or layups. And the best thing is you have 43,000+ pre-loaded courses to choose from!
Alongside this, the watch also has some neat smart features, allowing you to receive regular notifications from your phone. Whether its emails, texts, calls or any other alerts. the S44 has got you covered.
The Garmin S44 also has some cool score tracking features allowing you to enter your scores. Once you’ve paired with the actual app, then you can start tracking more in-depth stats.
If you pair the watch with Garmin’s Approach CT10 club trackers, you can even get automatic shot tracking capabilities. This can provide key stats to help improve your own game.
Additionally, with the Garmin Golf membership you can improve the display and features quite dramatically. After testing the watch I personally think that could be a bit overkill – more on that later…
Garmin Approach S44 GPS Watch Review
Looks and Feel
Before turning on the display, let’s talk about the looks. The S44 comes in quite a neat compact shape with a thin bezel. The watch is finished with a nice silver ring too, which frames the display nicely and looks premium.
The watch itself is quite thin which it very important for golfers who don’t like having anything on their wrist that is going to distract them.
The strap is made from a synthetic rubber plastic, that unfortunately does impact the premium feel a little bit. On the plus side the watch and strap combined are incredibly light!
The dials are placed on the right side which can be quite awkward if you want to put this on your left wrist. Even though the dials are small – they are still noticeable when hitting full shots. However when I put it on my right wrist, the feeling was totally different with no issues. So I’d definitely consider where you prefer to wear watches before buying.
Usability
To turn the device on, you have to hold down the orange button. Instantly the display was extremely clear with some really vibrant colours too making it a very inviting watch to use.
On the home screen you can see your step count, temperature, analog time and the date. I then went to pair it up with my phone creating a Garmin account. This was quick and easy, so I was good to go in no time at all. This process took approximately 5 minutes to set up, which is fine by me.
After that point the watch updated itself and was ready to go. Whilst playing about with the watch I noticed some really neat features once paired with my phone. Automatically all of my notifications were coming through, and I even found a really handy weather report from Garmin telling me when sunrise / sunset was. A great feature for anyone who likes to get out before or after work for a few holes!
On Course Performance
I tested this watch at Stockport Golf Club, starting on the 13th hole. After a quick press of the orange button and two further clicks, the watch had found the course and the 13th tee instantly, which I thought was very impressive.
It took me about five minutes to figure out how the watch worked in terms of showing the correct yardages or the bunkers to carry. On the whole, the user experience was a breeze and I found it very simple to press the up or down arrows, which would automatically change the targets for me.
The display from the tee box (Par 4) gave me a full hole view of the 13th, with fairway bunkers and two green side bunkers, showing your standard front, middle and back yardages.
Alongside this are three traffic light colours to highlight 100, 150 and 200 yards into the green which is ideal for people looking for a certain layup distance into the green. The full hole view in general is brilliant as it gives you a great perspective of the contours of the hole instead of carrying a course guide.
Leading up to the green allows you to swipe to the full green view, giving you the option to move the flag placement around the green to get a more precise yardage. This is a great feature as you can actually move the pin location around in the corners of the greens to see what certain carry yardages may be.
Shot Tracking & Post Round Analysis
To add your scores in every hole you have to swipe left and scroll down to the ‘Add Score’ selection. I did find that this became a little faffy to do every hole. I think it could be made easier if one of the buttons on the right was a simple adjustment.
However after the round I was pleased to be sent a summary of the round. A popup comes up showing the Time, Distance and Step count which I thought was a nice addition.
Battery Life
To test this out properly, I fully charged the watch the night before, and turned it on around 7am. I wore the watch the entire day and played about 4-5 hours of golf. At the end of the day the S44 still had 64% of battery life left, which I thought was pretty impressive compared to most smart watches.
Garmin Approach S44 GPS Watch Verdict
For someone who typically uses laser rangefinders, I thought the Garmin S44 GPS was brilliant. I was always under the impression that I hated having something on my wrist whilst playing. But with the S44’s slim and lightweight design, this watch was barely noticeable on my wrist when swinging.
I also really liked how simple it was to use once connected to the Garmin App. The watch is very self sufficient with no actual fees and with 43,000 preloaded courses, you really can’t go wrong with it.
Yes the price of this watch is quite high at £299.99, but it definitely packs a punch and is worth the upgrade in my opinion.
Would I Use it?
Yes and no! It’s a great little watch for golf and could even be an all round watch for most people. However for myself if I’m spending £299.99 on a smart-watch, I would expect it to be able to track your calories or give you an accurate heart rate reading. Garmin do offer the S70 watch with these features but at a whopping £250 extra, it’s probably not worth the extra money for most.
There is also model S50 which is cheaper than s70 and offers healthmonitoring.