Garmin Approach S44 GPS Golf Smartwatch Review
50 Words or Less
The Garmin Approach S44 golf smartwatch offers golf-centric features in a slender, easy to use watch. Beautiful AMOLED color touchscreen face. Friendly price.
Introduction
When Garmin proclaims “We’ve got your game” front and center on their website, they aren’t lying. Their recent releases of two golf smart watch models reveal they truly understand “your.” I’m still mesmerized by my full-featured golf S70 smartwatch [full review HERE], but now golfers have options that may better fit their needs or budgets. Zack reviewed the new Approach S50 [read it HERE] that shares a ton of features with the S70, but at a much friendlier price point. The new Approach S44 is golf-centric – skipping the S50’s health & wellness features and shaving $100 off the price.
Setup & Ease of Use
Like every one of their products I’ve encountered, the Garmin Approach S44 was intuitive and simple to set up. In the box was the smartwatch itself, a 4 pin USB-C charging cable, a graphic-centric start-up guide, and the ubiquitous safety and warnings booklet. I already had the recommended Garmin Golf App on my phone and completed pairing in seconds.
Operating the Garmin Approach S44 revolves around the AMOLED touchscreen and the two side buttons. The top button turns the watch on/off when held for 3 seconds, and engages the golf mode when pressed. The bottom button is for returning to the previous screen. As for the touchscreen – tap and scroll. Simple. The Owner’s Manual is worth downloading to ensure you don’t miss out on any features.
Features & Accuracy
A push of the golf mode button brought up a “PLAY GOLF” prompt and when tapped displayed the nearest courses super quickly (the smartwatch comes loaded with over 43,000 courses). I was then asked if I wanted to keep score and what tees I’d be playing. The next screen provided a graphic of the first hole with front/middle/back green distances. And don’t worry, there’s an option for changing holes for those shotgun starts.
A tap of the hole map displayed a major hazard by name (bunker) and also highlighted said hazard with a white outline. Using the up and down arrows toggled through the hazards, plus layup distances (200, 150, and 100 yards). The layup data was new to me, and it’s a feature I think golfers can utilize to their advantage.
Leaving the green, the Garmin Approach S44 prompted me to enter my score and advanced to the next hole. A cool feature is the small 18 hole tracker around the face perimeter that fills colors relative to par – blue for birdie, green for par, yellow for bogey (plus 5 more). It’s a subtle visual of how your round is going and an excellent example of the kind of details Garmin has incorporated into the smartwatch.
Two other golf features are worth mentioning. First is Green View, which not only displays the shape of the green, but allows for manual repositioning of the pin as demonstrated in the photo above. The second is PinPointer, which acts like a compass – always pointing towards the pin.
As for the accuracy of the Garmin Approach S44 – it was excellent. I found an occasional yard or two variance compared to fixed markers on the course and against my laser rangefinder. The latter can be tricky to use for checking greens, but shooting the far lips of bunkers clearly demonstrated the accuracy.
Jumping to the smartwatch non-golf features, my favorite is notifications. I only check my phone occasionally for urgent texts or emails while golfing, and the Garmin Approach S44 helped me avoid it altogether. Step counting is the only health and fitness feature – you’ll want to check out the S50 if you’re looking for more. I also found the weather conditions feature useful. I hope to never need, but I like knowing that the Find My Garmin feature is available.
Value
The Garmin Approach S44 retails for $300. Please consider supporting Plugged In Golf by buying it HERE.
The price is right in line with other golf gps touchscreen watches like the Shot Scope X5 [full review HERE]. The S44 does offer shot tracking with the addition of Garmin CT10 sensors installed on each club. Users also have the option of upgrading the golf features to a version close to the more feature-rich Approach S70 with a Garmin Golf membership for $10/month or $100/year. I encourage all potential buyers to engage the compare feature on the Garmin website to fully grasp the differences in the three Garmin watches mentioned here.
Conclusion
The Garmin Approach S44 is perfectly suited for the golfer who is looking for accurate distance information and doesn’t need health and wellness features. The AMOLED color touchscreen is simply beautiful to look at. The Approach S44 is super easy to use, and with the “go back” button I never worried about messing something up or finding the base screens. Having smaller wrists, I also appreciated the thin profile of the Approach S44. If the stock black or grey wrist bands aren’t your style, Garmin also offers a nice variety of color options.
Buy the Garmin Approach S44 GPS Smartwatch HERE
Senior Writer at Plugged In Golf
Matt – aka ‘Meeks’ – lives in the beautiful Lowcountry of South Carolina with his wife who allows his golf obsession to stretch the limits of normalcy.
