Smart Tracking | Apple Watch
Want the smoothest, most seamless Smart Tracking experience? Pair it with your Apple Watch.
Smart Tracking was built to shine on the Apple Watch, using its advanced motion sensors and accelerometer to detect your swings automatically. It’s the most precise, truly hands-free way to track your round – you don’t even need to bring your phone.
If you’ve got an Apple Watch, you’ve already got the smartest tracking tool in golf right on your wrist. Now it’s time to use it to unlock your best game!
Smart Tracking on Apple Watch
If you haven’t already, make sure to Pair your Apple Watch with 18Birdies (here's how).
Playing A Hole
You can start a round directly on your watch or phone using Smart Tracking! To do this, make sure that Smart Tracking is your selected scoring mode.
Using Automatic Swing Detection, each swing will be marked in real time – you’ll feel a buzz whenever a swing is detected. If you open the phone’s GPS, you’ll see a yellow dot on the map showing where shots were detected.
Once you walk away from a shot, you’ll see the distance from the previous shot displayed in the top left corner, great for if you are trying to find a wayward tee shot, or if you just want to know how far you hit the ball.
🛠️ For the most accurate swing detection results, try not to take swings when you are not near your ball! Practice swings are okay, as long as you are near a ball that you are planning to hit.
If available, you can click on the Map icon to view a map of the current hole! Learn more about Apple Watch Maps here.
Learn more about Maps on Apple Watch
Marking the Pin
When you get to the green, you’ll see an option to “Confirm Pin Position” appear on your watch. Confirming the pin position is an optional step that improves the accuracy of your stats for the round.
If you would like to confirm the pin position, you will get a prompt to go next to the hole and tap “Confirm”. To maximize accuracy, walk up to the hole, wait there for about 3 seconds, and then press the confirm button. This will mark the pin at your current location and save it to your round data.
Scoring
Once you finish the hole, click the blue pen icon. You’ll see a simple scoring panel to confirm some details about the hole.
Confirm Your Score & Putts
We will try our best to predict your total score and number of putts. Make sure this information is correct before moving on.
Add Penalties
If you do have a penalty, click “+ Penalties” to open up the penalty dropdown. Here you can indicate which stroke resulted in penalties along with how many penalties you incurred. For example, if you hit your tee shot into a hazard, you would add one penalty to stroke 1.
Estimate your First Putt Distance
Select one of the distance ranges provided – make your best guess!
🛠️For best results, you can walk from the hole to your ball; each step you take is usually about 3 feet.
Confirm Shot Positions
With Apple Watch and Auto Swing Detection, the shot placement will be pretty accurate. However, it is possible that there will be mistakes!
You can double-check your shot positions during the round by navigating to completed holes on the GPS Screen, or you can review all of your shots after the round in the Smart Tracking Round Summary.
Advanced Mode
Want more precision? Turn on Advanced Mode in Round Settings.
You’ll get:
- Exact first putt distance input
- Option to manually add your first putt with “+ First Putt” button
To manually add putts on Apple Watch, swipe to the left 2 times to reach the Shot Tracking screen. When you are near the hole, a green “+ First Putt” button will appear. Click this button when you are standing next to your ball on the green.
After this, you will be prompted to mark the pin position. Walk to the pin and click “Confirm Pin”.
Once you do this, your first putt location and pin position will be marked, and the exact distance of your first putt will be automatically calculated. Pretty neat!
🧠 Advanced Mode is great for users who liked our previous Strokes Gained scoring mode or want full control over every detail.