Tag Heuer Golf Review

A beautiful watch for the discerning golfer

Over the last 2 weeks, we have been making the most of our time with the latest Tag Heuer Connected Golf edition, Tags 2nd instalment of its latest timepiece dedicated to the game.

Having seen it in images we were pretty excited to take this one out and ask ourselves some big questions. Can luxury timepieces pave a way forward and cement a place in the Golf GPS market or would a customer benefit from using cheaper traditional GPS and slipping on their luxury timepiece afterwards?

Let’s find out.

Design

Before we look into the features and functionality of the wearable we’re going to discuss the design of this watch which on the first impression is absolutely beautiful.

To the naked eye, there are not many differences between the first and second edition but the ones you’ll notice right away are the inclusion of extra physical buttons above and below the rotatable crown. Not only do these make for a chunkier looking watch they also have their own added benefits for in-game functionality.

The latest connected Golf measures in at 45mm with a thickness of 15mm, not only does this make the screen extremely easy to read it’s also thin to slip under a jacket or even wear over a thinner base layer without feeling too uncomfortable.

In terms of the screen itself, it might be one of the best screens on a golf watch out in the market right now. The 1.36inch OLED display sits underneath sapphire glass making it extremely durable and scratchproof and with 326 pixels per inch, the graphics are absolutely glorious to look at both in low and bright light.

With such a premium price point, Tag Heuer has ensured the product retains premium build quality by making it out of sandblasted titanium (buckle too) and coupling it with a ceramic bezel.

Our review unit came with the white and green silicone bands which really accompany the green accents on the watch itself although in the box there are black bands that you can use and a very easy to change with the clip-on/clip-off strap mechanism on the watch. No pins are needed.

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Features and Functionality

So we’ve been through the hardware and what a brilliant job LVMH and the team at Tag Heuer have done in making this watch look right, but what about the software? Can what’s under mirror the time spent on aesthetics because without this it becomes’ just another smartwatch.’

like the last version, the new TH Golf is built on top of wear OS. Which is the standard Google operation system for wearables used by other manufacturers too.

At first, we had a lot of difficulties getting the watch set up and paired to our iPhone. Given the popularity of both operating systems, we would classify this as the major issue behind this but maybe it was put down the watches latest firmware instead.

After 3 separate attempts, we finally got it going and the watch was ready to roll and we managed to put it through its paces in a real-life environment at The Belfry.

Once connected the watch was really enjoyable to look at to give you all of your real data points, hats off to the software engineers who developed the look the app.

Whilst you’re playing you get a really good glimpse of the shape of the hole, the yardage and it also really intelligently works like your very own onboard caddie by telling you which club to use for your next shot and this will only start to get smarter with the amount of data you start to input and the number of rounds you play with the watch.

You’re also able to quickly input your score from the main screen, move over to a more strategic view to plan your layups or even move over to a more ‘traditional’ golf watch view where it gives you the front/back/middle yardages to the green.

Speaking of yardages it’s very important to have this metric set up as default in the phone app before you play.

With the added extra buttons the new Tag Heuer golf is also able to record your shot and you can press the top button to do this before you get into your set-up and we found it to be really accurate however for many this would just be another pre-swing thought many would love to eradicate if it was automated. When you’re fully focused on the game we found we almost forgot to do this a lot of the time.

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One of the GPS advantages the Connected Golf has is that it can either pull the GPS from the device itself or simply mirror the GPS from the phone app onto your watch similar to how the Apple watch and Arccoss would work with one another.

Whilst this is a watch dedicated to Golf, Tag Heuer do explicitly make note of its utility smartwatch features, as such you’re able to use this as more than a Golf watch and you can even track your other activities such as cycling and running.

In terms of battery life, this could also have been much better although not surprising considering how bright and high-res that screen actually is. The auto-dimming feature is brilliant when the watch is not in play and we only just about managed to squeeze a full 18 hole round out.

Getting a 36 hole round out of this is probably a no-go although it does charge very quickly via USB-c if you ever find yourself in a pickle.

We’d 100% recommend turning the brightness down and limiting your notifications to get the most of your battery life.

Verdict

All in all the Tag Heuer golf was great to use and both looked and felt great on the wrist at no point feeling like it ever got in the way.

Going back to the original question on what this watch is trying to be, well, we’d have to actually sit on the fence on this one.

We can’t imagine seeing too many of these out on the course or going head to head to with the other devices in the market right now. At £2100 we’d say it’s pretty pricey for a “golf watch” but the person who buys is this is also buying into the brand and as an added touch, The product also comes with a branded divot tool, tees and Titleist balls.

We don’t see this watch attempting to disrupt market share but rather show audiences what the team and Tag Heuer are capable of not only today but tomorrow.

One of the things they couldn’t at all compromise on is build quality and design and it’s safe to say they’ve nailed it in this dept.

Both the software and hardware are brilliant but at the times the software (on the watch) still felt slightly limited and difficult to navigate. The positive here is that these can always be updated from Tag Heuer and I’m sure they will be.

The standalone app is nothing short of brilliant with its 3D course rendering but the battery life on the device did let it down slightly.

This is very much a status symbol as it is a smartwatch, of course, you can buy watches that do the same thing but ultimately it’s down to your budget.

The watch will definitely aid your game and strategy and also look great whilst doing it, however, Is it the best performing golf watch out there? Probably not. Is it the best looking and best built? absolutely.

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