GPS specialist SkyCaddie reports that 70% of the top 50 finishers in this weekend’s JCB Championship on the Legends Tour carried a SkyCaddie for their yardages.
And eight golfers in the top ten finishing places, in one of the strongest fields of the season, were SkyCaddie users.
Most competitors used their own SkyCaddie SX500 or the recently-launched SX550 to access comprehensive hole-by-hole information which is only available to SkyCaddie GPS users.
The Legends Tour is the world’s most prestigious professional golf tour to allow the use of distance measuring devices, and the tournament organisers use SkyCaddie’s ground-mapped yardages to create pin sheets when setting each day’s pins.
After his Top Ten finish in the JCB, Ryder Cup star and three-time European Tour winner Phillip Price said: “The SkyCaddie is invaluable. I use it on most holes and take it everywhere with me. It provides the additional information which a laser can’t give.”
Three-time European Tour winner Joakim Haeggmann said: “I use SkyCaddie every day in every tournament, for tee shots, carries, layups, bunkers, greens and planning the hole ahead. It’s also essential if you’re out of position and need a new number to a layup or to a landing spot on the green. I’d miss it badly if I couldn’t use it!”
Andrew Sherborne, a multiple winner on the European Tour, said: “I use the SkyCaddie in every tournament without fail. A laser only gives you a single number, whereas a SkyCaddie gives you the shape of the hole, fairway, and green, and even the shape of every bunker. That’s a full perspective of the hole, even if you’ve never played it before.”
The Par 72 golf course at JCB Golf & Country Club was playing just less than 7,000 yards in the tournament. Already rated among the UK’s top 100 golf courses, the JCB features heavily-undulating fairways and greens which give SkyCaddie users huge advantages over golfers who use a combination of laser and yardage book.
England cricket legend Darren Gough, who competed in Thursday’s pre-tournament Legends Tour Celebrity Series event, said: “I‘ve been using the SkyCaddie for a year now. Once you’ve had one, you’re almost lost without it! Having a SkyCaddie is huge for players who are trying to get better.”
SkyCaddie’s James Holmes said: “When so many of the sport’s best players are now using SkyCaddie’s exclusive GPS maps, and you aren’t, ask yourself – what do they know that I don’t?
“Nobody is more serious about yardages than a tour golfer – and the majority of Legends Tour players now use a SkyCaddie.”
He concluded: “The JCB Championship attracted an amazing field of golfers. We are overjoyed that so many of them – including four Major-winners – trusted SkyCaddie for their yardages in the tournament.”
Visit www.skycaddie.co.uk for details of all SkyCaddie products and membership plans.