Golfing apps that improve the skill

Here’s a conversation topic for you and your golfing buddies as you kick back at the 19th hole on a summer’s evening and look back over your day on the course: all the apps that can help with your golfing game.

Of the many golf-related apps, some are intended to improve your technique and mastery of the sport, while others are aimed at increasing a golfer’s knowledge of the rules. Still other apps will teach you tricks about your favourite golf course.

For all the rules of the game, people can go straight to the source - the R&A, one of golf’s governing bodies - with the official Rules of Golf app for iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7. The free app is simple, even austere in design, with muted colours, simple text and a plain graphical interface.

Golf GPS & Scorecard from Swing by Swing is one of the most popular golfing apps. As its name suggests, the app has two main features.

First, it uses your phone’s GPS to track your path around a golf course. That helps to see precisely where people are on the course during play, how far away from the green they are, where obstacles like sand traps are situated, what local wind forecasts are, and so on. Second, the app acts as a digital scorecard for a player and three partners so they can keep track of how well they are playing, or how they are improving over time at a particular course.

Golf GPS also offers tools to analyse your game after playing. Because of the tracking feature, you can see where your shots went and gain a better understanding of the course. You can also see how far each shot went, and even log shot distances for each club in your bag so you understand your own clubs and style better.

While basic tracking and scorekeeping features are free when you download the app, you have to pay $1 (Rs 66) a round or $15 (Rs 990) annually to get access to real-time wind data, club distance tracking and other advanced features.

Another app, VPAR has a tournament feature that lets you set up and score, in real time, an online tournament that you and your friends play together. There’s a GPS planner that shows your position on the course, the layout of each hole and the distance to the green.

There’s a social media aspect so you can share progress as you play, and you can send messages to friends or fellow tournament players inside the app.

VPAR is good, and it covers over 30,000 courses worldwide. It is available only for iOS devices and costs $9 (Rs 594) annually after the first 14 days of use.

For a truly high-tech golfing app, check out Hole19, which is free. This app has many features to rival the others mentioned here, such as GPS tracking, hole route planning, distance data for more than 34,000 courses, detailed analytics on your performance and a scorecard.

It also has great integration with Android Wear and Apple Watch smartwatches, showing relevant information about the hole you are playing on your wrist. You can update how many strokes you have played on each hole via the watch app without having to get your phone out of your pocket. Fore!