Ever wonder how you would do on a golf course in Trinidad or Portugal? Or one in Sweden versus one in Palm Springs, California? Hole19 is an app that will let you scout each course before playing it and so much more.
While it’s nice to have someone write down your stats, and maybe get around to entering the data somewhere that’s searchable, it’s even nicer to have all of your stats from every course you’ve played, available in one place, which is what Hole19 offers.
Hole19 was created by the Portuguese company, H19 Limited. They’re a great example of what happens when geeks put their heads together to make something they love even better. According to Cofounder and CEO Anthony Douglas, Hole19 was created because the company felt that the golf industry was “lacking products with a good sense of design and user experience”. With that in mind, the fine minds at Hole19 created a free, no-strings-attached app to fill this need. It launched in April 2014.
H19 Limited is a nascent company. They used investors from AngelList, a platform created by Venture hacks for startups based in Europe; perfect since H19 Limited is situated in Europe. So far they have raised over $232,000 to make their app a reality and are among the top grossing apps in the Sports Category in the App Store. They’ve been incubated by big name incubators as Startup Lisboa and Seedcamp.
Since they love the game of golf, they’ve put together a complete app that combines aspects of other golf apps, such as Caddyr, GolfCard and iYardage, which are interactive golf scorecards that offers golfers an easy way to manage their score, putts, etc. While these apps are helpful if you’re trying to figure out your fairway hit or green in regulation (GIR) Hole19 has them beat.
They are focused on two very simple but important things: making your on-course golf experience great and improving your game. If you get frustrated while playing because you have no idea how you’ve done from game to game, course to course, Hole19 provides an easy-to-use interface where you enter your information, and the app provides analytics such as what your average amount of putts you’ve needed on a course have been or what your best hole on a course was.
Need to know how accurate your shot was? Hole19 covers that as well. After setting up an account for yourself and/or friends, set your handicap (no cheating!), search for a course, set up your bag, and set up your round. GPS Mode is useful to have turned on so you can track exactly where you are from the hole on the course.
Since its more fun to have others play with you and keep track of how they’re doing against you, you can add a player (or two, or three…). If you and your Facebook friends, you can import their contact information. If not, search them in Contacts or manually add them to your Buddy list.
Ready to hit the links? Make sure GPS is on, set your tee position, and plan your shot. Using simple inputs (tap and drag) you can see your distances, and record how many putts you needed.
That’s all from using the advanced mode but there’s an even simpler way to enter your data. By deactivating Advanced Input, you can simply enter your strokes, putts, penalties, etc. on one screen. When you’re done, choose Finish Round and you’ll get your Round Summary statistics. While this is good information, Hole19 doesn’t stop there. Their analytics allows you to see how you’ve done overall in various areas, over multiple games. This can only help grow your game.
The Hole19 app is available for download through Google play and App Store.
With over 33,000 course maps available, GPS tracking and real-time data analytics, Hole19 may become a fan favorite for serious as well as new golfers.