Updated in June 2023 to give a 1 year performance update mention the new Cobalt Q-4 Slope. There have been so many new rangefinders coming out these days, it’s hard to keep up with them all. And with Bushnell being a little bit slow to come out with any new devices, much of the hype has come from some of the eager upstarts in the budget to mid-tier price range like Precision Pro and Blue Tees. But there are a handful of companies on the higher end of the market that have been making rangefinders for years, that you probably aren’t hearing…
Author: Sean Ogle
Sean Ogle
As the Founder of Breaking Eighty Sean has spent the last 10+ years reviewing the best golf products and golf courses in the world. He prides himself on only writing about products and courses he's experienced first hand, and helping others find exactly what they need to enhance their enjoyment of the game we all love so much.
As I’ve become more familiar with the golf tech world over the years, there’s one product I never quite understood: the Garmin Approach G80. I’ve always thought it was just a hand-held GPS – an expensive one at that, considering it costs $500. With all of the smartphone apps out there that can essentially do the same thing, I just didn’t quite understand why this product was so expensive. And then I found out. It’s because the Approach G80 is far more than just a golf GPS. It’s a launch monitor. It’s a simulator (kind of). And it may just be the…
Over the last few years, we’ve seen a bunch of excellent, affordable golf simulators and launch monitors being released for consumers. Whereas accurate data used to cost tens of thousands of dollars, now with devices like the FlightScope Mevo Plus, Bushnell Launch Pro, and even the sub-$1k Rapsodo MLM2Pro – you can get a world-class practice and simulator experience from the comfort of your own home. All of those brands have had a lot of hype around the release of their devices. But for those paying attention, none are quite as exciting as today’s announcement: the release of the Golfzon Wave.…
My journey to Fishers Island happened in a very unexpected way. I was in New York City (you know, back when I used to travel), and saw that I had a friend from out of town who was also in the area on a golf trip. I shot him a note saying something like “Hey, you’re in NY too?! Any chance you have time to get a round in?” “Our schedule is pretty tight, but you know, we may actually have a spot for a forth on Wednesday. Let me check.” “Can you make it to the New London ferry…
About 3 years ago Bushnell created an entirely new product category with their golf Bluetooth speaker, the Wingman. We’ve now seen competing speakers from the likes of Precision Pro, Blue Tees, TecTecTec and more. The original Bushnell Wingman is a solid speaker. It sounds decent, and the integrated magnet works well. But there are some issues with bluetooth connectivity distance and a quirky app experience. Update July 2024: Bluetooth released the Wingman 2, which fixes many of the issues with the original. Well, they’ve spent the last 3 years learning from that first product and have now released not just one new…
It may have been after the third photo of Merion, or perhaps after one of my photos of the exclusive Maidstone Club, that I realized I was getting the exact same question over and over on Instagram and via email. I bet you can guess what that question is, and perhaps if you read this site regularly, you’ve wondered it yourself: How can you play so many private golf clubs? Before I started this blog, I remember looking at some of the other early golf bloggers out there and wondering the exact same thing. Over the last couple of years,…
There’s a good chance if you’re a regular reader of Breaking Eighty, that you know about my love affair with Arccos Caddie. I’m a tech nerd. Any new gadget, device, or toy – and I want to try it. This goes way back to 2014 when I first used the Arccos Golf system. It was unlike anything I’d seen before. It was still in its early stages, but I remember playing a full round at Yale and being able to go back and review every single shot after the round. It truly felt like a game-changer – and even today…
Is it the best golf tech product on the market? It very well might be.
Updated in May 2023 to add the Bushnell Tour V6, Tour V6 Shift, and remove the Pro XE. There’s a reason Bushnell golf has earned the title “King of Rangefinders.” Their products are consistently good across the board. I’ve never used a bad Bushnell product. From their top-of-the-line Bushnell Launch Pro launch monitor, all the way down to the Phantom 2 GPS. But as it sits right now, if you’re in the market for a Bushnell golf rangefinder, you have a handful of options that on the surface all seem very similar. They all have magnets. They all have great optics.…
Updated in April 2023 to include references and commentary on the new Bushnell Tour V6 Shift. For years, the Bushnell Pro XE was my definitive pick for the best rangefinder on the market. Yes, it was (and is) expensive. But it undoubtedly had the best combination of build quality, accuracy, and features. But in 2022, this started changing. (See our list of the best rangefinders in golf, to see what I mean.) All of the competitors? They started catching up. The Pro XE came out in February of 2019, over 3.5 years ago. Bushnell followed it up with the release…