You’ve heard about them, maybe seen them too. Everyday products are being hyped in your Twitter and Instagram feeds. They’re sometimes endorsed by pros, celebrities, and influencers alike. But do they live up to the hype? We take a closer look.
What are Golfers Talking About?
Devices. It’s not only golfers looking for the latest and greatest way to document, track and record our every move. Do you know anyone without a FitBit or an Apple Watch? Do you play with any golfers that don’t use some sort of shot tracking or game improvement gadget? Not on your nelly. (Translation: That’s British for NOPE)
So imagine then, a watch that combines it all. A virtual caddie (and then some) on your wrist that also has the ability to take care of all of your non-golf needs. You need to see your stress score and hydration level on your wrist while doing the laundry or sitting in the board room, right? Sounds perfect, sign me up.
The Garmin Marq Golfer watch can be yours for the extremely un-alarming price of $1,850.
Product Expert
Hi, I’m Harry, and I test a lot of things at MyGolfSpy. I play professionally when I’m not checking and comparing specs on gloves, rangefinders, bags.. ball retrievers.. etc. You can call me the Director of Soft Goods Testing here at MGS. You can also just call me Harry, that’s fine too.
Why the Hype?
Knowledge is power. Golfers are taking advantage of the benefits of shot tracking devices that empower them to strategize and understand the weaknesses of their game. There’s plenty of hype around many of these devices, but how much dough is too much dough?
$1,850 is more than a mortgage payment for some of us. As far as I’m concerned, this thing better fix me breakfast, walk the dog, flirt with my wife, and while it’s at it wipe my ass too. Essentially I wanted to find out if the Garmin Marq Golfer is earth shattering enough to justify a price tag that equates itself to the Rolex of golf watches.
Where The Hype is Coming From?
- Garmin is a household name in the GPS world. Expectations are high for anything Garmin produces.
- The Garmin Marq is actually an exclusive family of watches, in which the Garmin Marq Golfer is one of five elite smartwatches.
- It’s made of premium materials (titanium and ceramic)
- Greg Norman is a brand ambassador.
Assessing the Hype
First things first, what type of gadget aficionado are you? For example, I use my phone to text, call, take pictures and scroll social media. My super fancy phone probably has features and is capable of things that I don’t even know about. If you’re like me, the Garmin Marq Golfer might be overkill. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that some of its MANY features might go to waste if you don’t enroll in night classes to catch up.
However, if you use your FitBit or similar watch to track your pulse to be able to confidently say you’re still alive, you might find the Garmin Marq Golfer to be exactly what you’ve been waiting for. Now your everyday watch is also your golf watch.
No matter which type of tuned-in technology user you are, the Marq Golfer is pretty freakin cool and impressive.
It comes pre-loaded with 41,000 courses. More than likely, your home course is one of them. After you’ve taken a look at the hole layout, the virtual caddie gives you club suggestions based on shot data from previous rounds. The Marq Golfer detects wind direction and offers a hazard view. You can pair the watch with included tracking sensors to log every stroke including locations, distances and club type. It accounts for uphill and downhill shots. The battery lasts for 12 days… The list goes on and on.
I wore the Garmin Marq Golfer in a number of my most recent rounds and it does exactly what it says on the tin. Garmin truly delivered a fantastic piece of technology. That being said, I had the slow police right on my bumper. The Garmin Marq Golfer is so feature rich that you could spend ages studying and analyzing what club to use, calculating the wind over a hazard and peeking at the green layout. After all of that, you forget that you still have to actually swing the club. I appreciate a friendly tip here and there but I don’t want my watch to take the shot for me. For me, it lends to overthinking and turns out to be more of a distraction than a help.
“Harry, you don’t have to use all the features, narrow it down to the ones you like and ignore the others”, you the reader says to me condescendingly.
Dang it, if I paid $1,850 for anything I’m getting every penny out of it and I haven’t even dug in to everything it does off the golf course. I didn’t have time to hit the slopes and test out the Backcountry Ski Input.. YES IT DOES THAT TOO!! But if I was able to find a mountaintop to slide down in July, the Navigation tool would have safely guided me there, turn by turn. IT… NEVER… STOPS. I now live inside this device. It is me, I am it. I am watch. I love lamp.
Does it Live Up To the Hype?
The Bottom Line
I’m giving this a pretty high score on the hype meter. It’s not over-hyped because Garmin delivered what it said it was going to deliver. The features work seamlessly, the course mapping is quality, the technology is top of the line. The real determining factor? Is it worth $1,850? It sounds like a lot for a smart watch. I completely understand your sticker shock. But if you add up the value of each of the features of a lifestyle watch, exercise/recreation watch, and golf GPS.. you’re knocking on the door. And, it’s not the most expensive luxury golf watch on the market. (Google TAG Heuer Connected Golf Edition..) Therefore I deem the hype justified and give it a 4 out of 5. Props to you Garmin.
I don’t want to urge you to buy just because I think it’s worth the hype. It comes with a disclaimer. If you’re like me and are even remotely questioning whether you’d utilize all the features.. DON’T TAKE THE PLUNGE. It’s not worth your money if you don’t use it to its fullest abilities. I wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole, and that’s not just because my wife would kill me. I wouldn’t benefit from everything it has to offer and I know I’d be so overwhelmed with information that my game would suffer.
The Bottom Line is, this is for the data/gadget geek or frivolous millionaire watch collector. If the latter is you, the full line of Garmin Marq Limited Edition watches is available for an easy $10,000.
Howie
4 years ago
Garmin might want to focus more on their IT security. and less on overpriced watches. They were hacked a couple of days ago with ransomware and the demand to return the stolen files is reportedly $10M. No one with a Garmin device has been able to sync and all Garmin website and other IT-related customer touchpoints have been locked down.