SkyCaddie GPS continued its breakthrough progress in the world of Tour golf when it was used by seven of the top ten finishers at this weekend’s Farmfoods European Legends Links Championship Hosted by Ian Woosnam at Trevose.
The tournament’s winner, South Africa’s Chris Williams, used his SkyCaddie SX500 GPS rangefinder throughout the event, as did Andrew Oldcorn and Peter Baker (T5), plus David Shacklady, Peter Wilson, Clark Dennis and Markus Brier (all T7).
In the Championship, which was the first Legends Tour event of the year, over half of all competitors used SkyCaddie GPS for their yardages.
Legends Tour organisers also worked with SkyCaddie when setting the pins at the tournament. SkyCaddie then provided the daily pin sheets for players to use. Each day’s pins were also WiFi-downloaded onto competitors’ SkyCaddie GPS handhelds.
Williams birdied the last to clinch the tournament, hitting a perfect 8-iron to three feet after using his SkyCaddie to get a yardage on the uphill 18th at Trevose.
“On that final approach shot I used the SkyCaddie’s cursor to get a yardage to a particular point on the green, like I do on most holes” said Williams after his first victory in Europe in a tournament career spanning over 40 years. “With a good yardage, my mind was clear and I hit a great shot.”
“I trust my SkyCaddie’s yardages and now use it 99.9% of the time in tournament play. I don’t need to use a yardage book any more. The SkyCaddie is now part of my tee shot routine, it gives me a yardage to where I want to actually hit the ball.
“At Trevose like many links courses you often face a blind shot over mounds – for example the approach to the first green if you are out of position. In these cases the SkyCaddie saves me loads of time, it is instantaneous, and it’s good in bad weather too” he said.
Tournament host and 1991 Masters Champion Ian Woosnam is another Legends Tour competitor who now uses SkyCaddie GPS for yardages during tournaments. He said: “I use my SkyCaddie on every tee to judge carries and runouts when hazards are in range, and having the day’s pins preloaded gives me a complete roadmap of each hole without worrying about line of sight.”
SkyCaddie’s new SX550 model is set to take over from the popular SX500 as the favoured GPS device among elite golfers when it launches in the UK at the end of this month.