Rating: 
Summary: BEWARE--COURSE MAPS NOT INCLUDED----VERY DECEITFUL
Review: ...The Golfwits website was recently changed. I purchased July 24, 2003 and the website then lead you to believe if you purchase the PRO package you had unlimited access to course map downloads. Well now you don't. You only get three! If your home course is like mine it has three nine hole courses which are the equivalent of three 18 hole courses. Well I play more golf and at more couses than just my home couorse. And I believe anyone who is looking for this type of software probably does too. So if you don't mind the additional $$ money for the course maps that this software will not work without then go ahead and purchase. It works great! ...
Rating:
Summary: Golfwits - Maps no longer free
Review: Buyer beware. I purchased this last month and was having fun with it until the folks at Mapwits began charging for course downloads. Reviews I read here indicate that over 4000 course maps are available for free -- not true. I emailed them and received some gobbedlygook about focus group recommendations to charge, etc. Seems like their whole pricing structure is changing.
Rating: 
Summary: How it works
Review: Golfwits is an all around fantastic golf score and statistic tracking system. It's got one of the best PDA interfaces I've seen - a very intelligent use of such a small space. They coin (or at least used to coin) it MIMO: Minimal Input, Maximum Output. I think it's an accurate description because you get tons of stats back from just a few simple touches on the screen.You start with a scaled-down graphical image of each hole for the golf course (more on this later). To start a round you enter some minimal player info: name, tee, 150 yard club (for default club suggestions), HCP, and whether you want Golfwits to track clubs. You can enter just the name and the tee box you are using if the rest is not important to you, but I suggest tracking clubs and picking your 150 yard club as well because the stats you get back are more detailed. Up to you. Then, for each shot you simply touch the screen where your ball landed. You can move it around until you get the exact position - a box with yard left to the center of the green will appear as you touch/move around to assist finding the exact location. Once you remove the pen from the screen, you touch the pen in the middle of the box for a straight shot, or move it to the sides to indicate a hook, draw, fade or slice. An image of the ball flight path appears as you do this. When you release for the appropriate ball flight (hopefully straight :-), a box/grid will appear with the clubs listed. Select the appropriate club and you are done with the shot. If you miss hit the ball, there is a check box on the clubs screen to accommodate this - again helps with adding value to your stats. At first this sounds like alot of entry for one shot, but the way they've done designed it and once you're accustomed, it's really not. If you decide against tracking clubs, you simply don't get the box/grid. This speeds up entry, but reduces the value of your statistics. Not worth it in my opinion. When you get to the green, Golfwits automatically switch to putts mode. This part is really neat in my opinion. You select the distance of your first putt (unless you don't care about tracking this stat, you don't HAVE to do this, but again, I recommend for the value of the statistics it provides). Then you just click on grid - LL, Long, LR, Left, Hole, Right, SL, Short or SR. You just click what happened for each putt and your done. There is an option for Sand Save if the putt comes after being in the sand. Golfwits is smart enough to know that you came out of the sand and will automatically check it unless you put more than one putt in. You can uncheck it if you don't want to track that stat, but why would you do that? There's so much more to tell, but that's the basics of entering your scores. I'll leave the user guide to fill you in on the rest. Read my other reviews on "Courses and Mapwits" and "Golfwits vs. Intelligolf".
Rating:
Summary: How it works
Review: Golfwits is an all around fantastic golf score and statistic tracking system. It's got one of the best PDA interfaces I've seen - a very intelligent use of such a small space. They coin (or at least used to coin) it MIMO: Minimal Input, Maximum Output. I think it's an accurate description because you get tons of stats back from just a few simple touches on the screen. You start with a scaled-down graphical image of each hole for the golf course (more on this later). To start a round you enter some minimal player info: name, tee, 150 yard club (for default club suggestions), HCP, and whether you want Golfwits to track clubs. You can enter just the name and the tee box you are using if the rest is not important to you, but I suggest tracking clubs and picking your 150 yard club as well because the stats you get back are more detailed. Up to you. Then, for each shot you simply touch the screen where your ball landed. You can move it around until you get the exact position - a box with yard left to the center of the green will appear as you touch/move around to assist finding the exact location. Once you remove the pen from the screen, you touch the pen in the middle of the box for a straight shot, or move it to the sides to indicate a hook, draw, fade or slice. An image of the ball flight path appears as you do this. When you release for the appropriate ball flight (hopefully straight :-), a box/grid will appear with the clubs listed. Select the appropriate club and you are done with the shot. If you miss hit the ball, there is a check box on the clubs screen to accommodate this - again helps with adding value to your stats. At first this sounds like alot of entry for one shot, but the way they've done designed it and once you're accustomed, it's really not. If you decide against tracking clubs, you simply don't get the box/grid. This speeds up entry, but reduces the value of your statistics. Not worth it in my opinion. When you get to the green, Golfwits automatically switch to putts mode. This part is really neat in my opinion. You select the distance of your first putt (unless you don't care about tracking this stat, you don't HAVE to do this, but again, I recommend for the value of the statistics it provides). Then you just click on grid - LL, Long, LR, Left, Hole, Right, SL, Short or SR. You just click what happened for each putt and your done. There is an option for Sand Save if the putt comes after being in the sand. Golfwits is smart enough to know that you came out of the sand and will automatically check it unless you put more than one putt in. You can uncheck it if you don't want to track that stat, but why would you do that? There's so much more to tell, but that's the basics of entering your scores. I'll leave the user guide to fill you in on the rest. Read my other reviews on "Courses and Mapwits" and "Golfwits vs. Intelligolf".
Rating: 
Summary: Serious Stats -- But Prepare for a Steep Learning Curve
Review: I bought this last year and I'm still a fan a year later. First off I should admit I'm a bit of a gadget freak, so the hole idea of an on-course management tool appealed. Raves go to the interface & the fact that I haven't found a course that I haven't able to download. Now imagine this... you're on the couse with a friend (a rival!)and you whip out your iPAQ, tap it a few times and say, loud enough for your competitor to hear: "Hmmm... it's 57 yards to carry the trap and 73 to the front edge of the green... got it!" Three cheers for techno-intimidation!! Rants: the interface is only as good as the person who input the course. It also can't show elevation, which is too bad... but understandable enough. Lastly the interface isn't exactly intuitive... but easy enough when you spend some time with it; WARNING: practice with the interface BEFORE you go to the golf course, or you'll look stupid. It's really worth watching the flash example on their website about 6 times in a row.. !) Rants: I agree with another reviewer who stated that you really can't keep track of more than 2 people... data entry becomes too cumbersome. I'm happy with it & sure you will be too it you're a golf addict and a tech head!!
Rating:
Summary: Serious Stats -- But Prepare for a Steep Learning Curve
Review: I bought this last year and I'm still a fan a year later. First off I should admit I'm a bit of a gadget freak, so the hole idea of an on-course management tool appealed. Raves go to the interface & the fact that I haven't found a course that I haven't able to download. Now imagine this... you're on the couse with a friend (a rival!)and you whip out your iPAQ, tap it a few times and say, loud enough for your competitor to hear: "Hmmm... it's 57 yards to carry the trap and 73 to the front edge of the green... got it!" Three cheers for techno-intimidation!! Rants: the interface is only as good as the person who input the course. It also can't show elevation, which is too bad... but understandable enough. Lastly the interface isn't exactly intuitive... but easy enough when you spend some time with it; WARNING: practice with the interface BEFORE you go to the golf course, or you'll look stupid. It's really worth watching the flash example on their website about 6 times in a row.. !) Rants: I agree with another reviewer who stated that you really can't keep track of more than 2 people... data entry becomes too cumbersome. I'm happy with it & sure you will be too it you're a golf addict and a tech head!!
Rating: 
Summary: EXPENSIVE,... even the free download is expensive!
Review: I initially wanted to purchase the software for my palm. At $40-50 it's a little more expensive, but the way they analyze seems worth it. Til I saw the real costs, the maps are not free! They costs $10 each, and if not made already, $20 each. One map can cost more than some of the other golf softwares out there. They do have Mapwits software, which with some effort on your part create your own maps, but it's only available when you buy the pro bundle, $90. If creating your own maps is a bit much then the costs can be very high (pda software $50 then adding approximately 12 maps, as much as $90-180 more, totaling over $200). To be fair they do have a lot of maps. They also have a free download version, but you can't test it without buying maps, so "free" is not free! I'm not rich nor lazy, so I'll reconsider them when Mapwits is included with the softwares or available for PC and inexpensive.
Rating:
Summary: GolfWits review - OK for one, hard for more...
Review: I've tried to use GolfWits a few times and I've found it hard to use when trying to keep scores and statistics for more than me. While the maps are nice, they are somewhat cumbersome to use as you need to click on the exact point where your ball landed. This isn't very accurate on handheld screens as they are relatively small. I would pass on this application for now.
Rating:
Summary: Not good for tracking multi-player rounds
Review: If your wanting to track your individual score, then this application is the one; however, if you want to keep multiple players then buy some other application. You have to enter each stroke into this application as opposed to just entering the number of strokes for the hole. Since I have received the application, I have requested two courses that were not downloadable on the web site. It has been over three weeks, and they still haven't published the courses. I did play one course that I could download and the user interface was really good. I really like the distance from the hole, and tracking my shots; however, their are times where I wouldn't like to input all this information for each hole and if I want to keep a whole round of golf, you have to enter every stroke you hit. If you play par or Birdie Golf then that's great, but if your a Par/Bogie/+ player, it kind of gets annoying. If you want a scorecard for other players, this application will keep you busy all through the round entering everyones shots, and not allow for much time to enjoy the game. Plus you usually don't want to track other players stats, just yours, but I would like a calculated scorecard for all players. I wished I would have purchased the other application I reviewed. If they had a demo version of the application, I wouldn't have purchased this one.
Rating:
Summary: Golfwits vs. Intelligolf
Review: In my opinion there are really only two golf tracking systems to consider buying - Golfwits or Intelligolf. A year ago, when I purchased Golfwits, I did a big search for all sorts of golf tracking systems (about 30 of them including non PDA ones) and these were the best two bar none. I found another one called the Golf StatDoctor, which was kinda cool, but without having the PDA interface, it just didn't compare. It provided decent statistics (and some that neither Golfwits or Intelligolf provided), but was also a little clumsy to use. In all, there were only a handful of decent ones. Intelligolf and Golfwits definitely stand out. Comparisons... Golfwits is easy to use. Contrary to other reviews I've read, I felt the interface was very intuitive except for maybe when you make mistakes or need to insert penalty strokes. I'm still not sure if I'm doing penalty strokes right, but it works the way I do it. Intelligolf is also easy to use. Golfwits has fully configurable stats. You can define your own statistics to either compliment or replace the ones provided by Golfwits. There's a whole section on this and even a downloadable API for the functions used to perform the calculations. You can do just about anything based on the data gathered. It's pretty impressive really. This is why I suggest using things such as setting track clubs and making sure to include first putt distance - to get the most out of the program. Intelligolf does not have configurable stats (or at least it didn't when I reviewed it). Intelligolf is a better (easier) multiplayer system. If you are tracking scores for more than one player, it can be information overload. Although there is no way to just put the scores in for the other players, you can simply enter putts for those players. It would be nice if they provided an option even further than simply not tracking clubs to allow simply entering strokes for some users. I think this is where Intelligolf has the edge - in multi-player entry. Granted the results are less impressive in Intelligolf, it's certainly easier for multi-player entry. Golfwits yardages and putting distances are a little touchy on such a small screen. if you're hands are a little shaky you could have some problems. They'd have to be pretty shaky, though. Intelligolf has no visual components, so this is not an issue. Golfwits average yardage statistics for clubs include miss hits and chip shots. The stats are configurable to include/exclude miss hits, but chip shots are another story. You may wish to use a special club (GW or other) whenever chipping so as to not affect your clubs stats. Intelligolf has both problems - it doesn't have a "Miss Hit" option. Lack of courses. Golfwits has 7000+. Intelligolf has 18000+. This comparison is not fair because Intelligolf courses have no graphical information, so I'm sure people are submitting courses all the time for that application. A con for Golfwits. A pro for Intelligolf. Golfwits has some good side games, but I've never used them. From my playing around with them, I'd say they are as good as Intelligolf or maybe better if you are willing to enter all the stats for each player, however, since Intelligolf has the edge on multi-player use, I'd say side games are probably more convenient in Intelligolf, but that's just me speculating. I have no real experience here. Golfwits is better at capturing more statistics with fewer clicks - MIMO. If you use the extended features in Intelligolf, such as fairways hit, GIR, sand saves, etc, it negates the benefits over Golfwits and in my opinion takes more effort to put in all the things because you have to manually input all this data. Plus, you'd have to manually input distances, etc. Where Golfwits takes three clicks to put all this information in, Intelligolf would take four or more clicks plus the manual yardage inputs and it lacks the visual benefits of Golfwits. There are many, many other things I could compare, but these are the ones that stand out in my mind as I write this review. Summary... If you are looking for an individual game tracking system that provides the best statistical output based on the information you enter, Golfwits is the best one. Though Intelligolf still provides good statistics (as good as Golfwits in some respects), the visual aids included with Golfwits and the ability to tailor the statistics to your own needs makes it the better choice. If you don't care about statistics as much and just want to track your scores (and the scores of others), Intelligolf is probably the way to go because it allows you to enter just scores and also allows you to view all player's scores on one page easier. Read my other reviews on "How It Works" and "Courses and Mapwits".
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