Detect shots automatically
If you wear the Apple Watch it recognises your shots from the motion and reports them to the iPhone. Nothing to type.
The watch vibrates briefly and keeps showing distances. The iPhone assigns the club; the shots appear there as dots on the map, and that's where you correct them, during the hole or after the round.
On the iPhone, detected shots appear as numbered dots on the map, the latest in yellow. “Last shot” shows how far you are from it — that is, how long the shot was. When a swing arrives, a short message appears at the top.
NoteCan be switched off under Settings → Swing detection. The sensors use noticeable battery.
Score without typing
When you leave a hole without a score, the app enters the shots — detected or set by you — plus penalty strokes and putts. If you entered no putts, it assumes two. When you finish the round, the same applies to every hole.
A watch symbol on the scorecard marks a score that was filled in this way. Anything you enter by hand always takes precedence.
NoteDetection is not yet perfect. Several shots in quick succession, for example in a bunker, can merge into one. A look at the scorecard after the round is worthwhile.
Setting shots yourself
At the ball: tap “Shot” and choose the club. The shot appears as a dot on the map and counts towards the score. If the watch reports a swing at the same spot, it is the same shot — it is not counted twice.
Afterwards, from the green for example: tap the map where the ball was and choose “+ Shot”. The app slots it in between the shots before and after.
Penalty strokes
Tap a shot to open it. There you enter penalty strokes — for a ball out of bounds, in the water or unplayable. They appear in red on the shot and count towards the score.
Reviewing rounds hole by hole
History → open a round → tap a hole. The map shows the hole, every shot with its club and the distance to the next shot, penalty strokes in red and the putts on the green. Switch holes at the top.
The map shows what was recorded. If a shot is wrong — say a chip from the neighbouring green that was assigned to the tee — tap it: change the club, add penalty strokes, remove it, or choose “Move on the map” and tap where the shot really was. The round's score stays as it is.
Sharing a round
History → “Share” below the round card. The app turns the card into an image — score, Stableford, GIR, putts, penalty strokes and playing partners — and opens the share menu for messages, mail or photos.
Rebuilding a round
If the recording of a hole is completely wrong, rebuild it from memory:
- In the hole view, clear the recording via “…” → “Remove all shots”.
- Tap “+ Shot”, tap the map where the ball was, and choose the club. Repeat for every shot.
- If a shot is in the wrong place in the order, open it and move it up or down with the arrows.
- If a shot is in the wrong place, press and hold it until it vibrates, then drag it to where it really was.
- Around the green it gets tight: the “Green” button at the bottom right of the map zooms in on the green and its surroundings, “Hole” shows the whole hole again.
The history shows each round as a card with score, Stableford, GIR, putts, penalty strokes and score distribution; from there you go straight to the scorecard, the holes or editing.
How the app learns your clubs
Every club you assign to or confirm for a detected shot is an example: swing and distance to the green from where the shot was played. For a new swing the app picks the club of the most similar examples — a slow swing just short of the green becomes your 9-iron if that's what you chip with.
NoteThe app learns only from your corrections, not from its own guesses. The more shots you put right after a round, the better it gets.
Correcting shots
During the hole: tap a dot on the map. There you can change the club and penalty strokes, or remove the shot — a practice swing that was counted, for example. Corrections happen on the iPhone; the watch does not distract you with questions while you play.
After the round: History → open the round → “Edit scores”. Every score can be changed hole by hole.
After the round the shots add up once score and putts are entered: the app then counts exactly score − putts − penalty strokes to the green and sets aside surplus swings — rattling clubs, arm movements, two swings at the same spot. The hole view shows the sum; set-aside swings are greyed in the list and can be brought back with “Count”.
Swing tempo
For every detected shot the watch measures how long the backswing and downswing took. The ratio is your tempo: tour players are at about 3 : 1, whether they swing fast or slow.
Statistics → Swing tempo shows your typical ratio, the times, how consistent it is from shot to shot and the tempo of your last round. For clubs you have confirmed it is also shown per club. Individual shots show it in the hole view.
NoteNot every swing gives a number: chips and half swings have no recognisable backswing, and swinging straight out of walking means no still address. Then the watch leaves the tempo out. Practice swings don't count.
Practice swings
On the wrist a practice swing looks like a shot. It can only be told apart afterwards: after a shot you walk to the ball, after a practice swing you stay put.
If you barely move across several swings, the app treats it as practice and does not count it. On the driving range it therefore counts nothing at all.
NoteThe watch needs location access for this. Without it the app cannot tell a practice swing from a shot.
Strike sound (test)
A practice swing makes no strike sound. That is why the watch can listen, as a test — the motion sensor alone is too slow to notice ball contact; the microphone is not.
For now the sound decides nothing. It goes into the diagnostics as figures, so that real rounds can later settle what a strike sounds like.
NoteNo audio is stored or sent. The two seconds around each swing become five numbers, and the audio itself is overwritten straight away. The watch shows the orange microphone dot meanwhile.
Turn it on under Settings → Swing detection → Listen for the strike. It is off by default.
Entering the score by hand
Plus and minus on the caddie view or on the watch. The app accepts at most 20 strokes on a hole — enough for open stroke play too.
Putts are entered separately, with the length of each one if you like. The putting analysis is built from that.
Finish round
The app asks whether the round should go into your history. A round without a single stroke is not saved — it would distort every statistic.
Finishing stops location tracking and shot detection, on the watch too — whether you save or discard. The app then summarises the round: birdies, pars and bogeys, and for individual rounds whether you played to your handicap. “Done” takes you back to the home screen.
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