I guess it's not clear to me if and how it "locks in". Apparently the flags with the prisms on it are fairly easy to hit, and bright colors are picked up more easily than dark ones.

Maybe I'll just start pounding Jack Daniel's before each round. That will ease the shakes for a bit.

On flags without prisms, I just press the button and move the cross around the fabric of the flag. Usually that does the trick even in dead calm winds.

this, when you are a ways out just use the scanning mode, works for me even at 300+ yards, but I have the 3xi, not sure if it's different

The flag stick is sometimes hard to see with white flags and blends in, so my range finder isn't going to be accurate from 250+; so in situations such as this i feel the GPS is helpful. Aswell, the GPS helps if you get caught up in a spot where its hard to see the flag stick (in brush or behind a hill etc)

Is precise accuracy from 250+ really that important? I'm just not at that level where 256 v. 262 matters at all.

Nobody is at that level. That's precisely why if you have a gap in your clubs you want it in your longer ones as opposed to your wedges.

BO

should i buy a pin seeker 1500 for 100 bucks? Seems pretty legit with the reviews on amazon

still think it's way easier to just turn on the skycaddie and look at it when you put your bag down to hit

it isn't hard to shoot at a pin though, idk why people have this idea that using a range finder is more difficult. the only time a gps woudl be more beneficial to me is on a completely blind hole

GPS is as useful ONLY if you plan on aiming for the center of the green all the time. Otherwise not so much.

Anyway, played this afternoon and used it for the first time. Love it - it fulfills my need for INSTANT GRATIFICATION. The course I played has really long par-3s (three of them are 230+) and while it did take awhile for my shaky hands to get the right number from those distances, I was able to get it. Even with the shakes I could get distances sub-150 right away, especially if the flag was waving.

Cliff's Notes:

i pulled mine out on the 1st hole yesterday and nothing showed up on the screen when it hit the button, battery was dead and i never put my spare one into my new bag when i bought it

playing without one after you are used to using it really sucks

Left my GX3i on the 8th hole last week, went back to grab it... gone. Of course the group behind me claims they didn't see it.

Ordered a GX1

I really want one now after using the one a guy I played with today had.

I'm OCD enough that before I even used it for the first time I bought two spare batteries and put them in my golf bag.

Were they the only people through the hole to that point, so the only ones who could have taken it? People suck so bad. If it was clearly them that scooped it I'd have been tempted to go ****ing crazy and start rifling through their bags.

Thankfully this doesn't seem likely to be something I'd leave behind. It went back into the cart after each use and never hit the ground.