SkyCaddie walks ahead of Tour events in 2019

With the new SX500 growing in popularity among tour players, SkyCaddie’s top mapper is heading to this season’s Staysure Tour venues in Europe to ensure that all course measurements are up to date.

Since its launch in late 2018, SkyCaddie SX500 has become one of the most popular distance measuring devices on the Tour, which pioneered the use of DMDs in competitive play at the sport’s highest level.

The 2019 Staysure Tour reaches mainland Europe on May 30^th at the Golf Club Udine in Fagagna for the Senior Italian Open, and SkyCaddie’s Steve Winstone – known as @SkyCaddieSteve to his thousands of Twitter followers – will ensure that SkyCaddie’s exclusive downloadable course data reflects the very latest changes at Udine.

Winstone, SkyCaddie’s mapping guru in the UK, Europe and the Middle East, will do the same at all other European stops on the Tour, plus as well as the season-ending Tour Championship events in the Seychelles and Mauritius.

“We constantly make personal visits to golf courses to update their course maps throughout the year” said Winstone, “so we have already updated several of this year’s Staysure Tour venues. But I will personally visit those venues which have made changes since our last visit, prior to each tournament starting.

“Everyone with a SkyCaddie on this year’s Tour will find their device is completely up to date, as we – and only we – take the trouble to map each course on foot.”

Players have been able to use distance measuring devices in competition on the Staysure Tour since 2015, and the SX500’s ability to pre-load the day’s pin positions and display information invisible to lasers has won admirers on the tour since its autumn 2018 launch.

Going into the 2019 season the SX500 is being used by 16 competitors on the Staysure Tour. Among them are 1991 Masters champion Ian Woosnam OBE, multiple Tour winner including five Senior Tour events in Europe, and 2018’s Rookie Of The Year Paul Streeter, who finished 9^th on the season’s Order Of Merit.

“I now use the new SkyCaddie before every tee shot, and for carries, run outs and layups in all tournaments” said Streeter, who won the 2018 Costa Blanca Benidorm Senior Masters while using the SX500. “The SX500’s screen is big and clear, even in bright sunlight, and I think more and more golfers on Tour will start to use it in 2019.”

Recent Q-School graduate David Shacklady, who finished 11^th on the 2018 Order Of Merit, said: “The SkyCaddie SX500 just supplies far more information than a laser, and gives me a huge ability to picture and execute the shot. It blows other distance measuring devices out of the water.”

Expecting to see up-to-date course maps is simply the norm for SkyCaddie users, said Steve Winstone. “For over twenty years we have been committed to giving SkyCaddie customers the most accurate-possible course data” he said.

“99% of the time these course updates are downloaded by handicap golfers who love how accurate their SkyCaddies are, but the SX500’s new advanced features mean that it is now fast becoming popular among professionals and elite amateurs too.

“Knowing that some of the leading players on Tour are trusting the SX500’s yardages, even when coming down the stretch with money at stake, makes the mapping work we do even more worthwhile.”

In January 2019, Winstone also updated SkyCaddie course maps for the Pestana Golf Resort on the Algarve, the venue for this year’s Staysure Tour Q School, as several SX500 users were among the field.

SkyCaddie’s European General Manager, James Holmes, said: “We are thrilled to see that the new SkyCaddie SX500 is now curing laser-blindness on Tour, as well as in golf clubs across the UK.

“The SX500 sees around corners, through trees, into hidden dips, and over the tops of bunkers. It gives a golfer a complete and instant view of every golf hole, in every situation, from tee to green – without blind spots.

“It has moved the game forwards significantly.”

See more about the new SkyCaddie SX500 here: www.skycaddie.co.uk.