New gadgets can help golfers fine-tune game

STONE MOUNTAIN - Golf is a constant quest for improvement, which is why new clubs, balls, training aids and other gadgets are introduced each year. If gadgets were truly the answer, of course, there would be more top-notch golfers littering the links.

Nonetheless, I tested a few new golf devices and one club in the off-chance one might bring me a step closer to breaking 80 on a par-72 course for the first time. Although I didn't manage that, I found some promising companions.

► The Callaway uPro ($399.99), from Callaway Golf Company, is a GPS device about the size of a deck of cards. It tells you where you are in relation to the hole you're trying to knock the ball into.

Global positioning system technology is familiar to the golf bag, but the uPro has several notable features. It lets you download full-color, birds-eye-view video clips of the course you're playing, so you can see trees, fairway widths and hazards that lie around the blind corner.

I connected the uPro to my PC and downloaded some of my local golf course maps to the device.

There are both free and paid versions of various golf courses. A single course map costs $10, and multi-course packs go for as much as $180 for 150 courses of your choosing.

The free ones provide basic yardage to the green, icons representing hazards and a few other features. The "Pro" paid versions gave me the flyover videos.

The Pro version also helped me select the best clubs for my shots by giving me the distance from where I stood to the spot I wanted my ball to come to rest. Using a navigation pad on the device, I moved an on-screen icon to my desired landing spot, and uPro gave me the distance to that location.

As I played the nine-hole Candler Park course in Atlanta, uPro gave me accurate yardage for all of my shots. That helped my game when I made solid contact with the ball, though very little when I misfired a shot.

The uPro is a fine device with premium GPS capabilities. It's lightweight, and I barely felt it when I shoved it in my back pocket during shots. I also was able to keep score for my round with the uPro, which handled all the multitasking just fine. I'd buy it if I played a lot of long courses where distance data are at a premium, but it's disappointing to have to pay extra for the Pro course maps.

► The Garmin Approach S1 ($249.99), from Garmin International, is a nifty GPS watch that offers important course info at a glance. No golf aid I've ever tried was easier to use than this one. I simply put it on my wrist and headed to the course.

All the course data are free and appear automatically. When I got to the Stonemount Course in Stone Mountain, the Approach S1 immediately recognized the course and my hole and gave me the yardage to the front, middle and back of the green. The numbers adjusted automatically when I arrived at my next shot, the next hole, and so on.

I never had to press a button unless I wanted to measure the distance of a shot I just hit. I could simply glance at it and know that I had 143 yards to the middle of a green. I can't consistently hit 143 ya

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