Three of the best golf watches and wearables
Tech on the wrist has become as much a part of the modern golfer’s kit as a trusty putter or favourite driver. Today’s golf watches and health trackers deliver not only game-changing features like pinpoint GPS distances and club suggestions but also life-changing tools like blood-pressure and heart monitors.
In 2025, the latest line-up blends style with smarts, meaning you’ll want to keep them on long after you’ve walked off the 18th green. Here are our editors’ picks of the best wearables of the year.
Garmin Approach S44 & S50
Garmin has teed up two impressive new golf watches – the Approach S44 and Approach S50 – designed to help golfers of all levels sharpen their game. Both models feature lightweight designs, brilliant 1.2-inch colour AMOLED displays and preloaded maps of more than 43,000 courses worldwide. Essential features such as hazard view, green distances and smart notifications make them the perfect playing partner, with up to 15 hours of battery life in GPS mode.
The Approach S44 delivers the essentials, from navigating bunkers to club selection with ease. Step up to the S50, and you’ll unlock advanced tools like PlaysLike Distance, wrist-based heart rate monitoring, sleep and stress tracking, plus preloaded fitness profiles to improve strength and mobility off the golf course.
Pair either watch with the new Approach CT1 tracking tags to capture every shot, distance and club in your bag, transforming performance insights into lower scores.
What we love about it: The PlaysLike Distance feature is really cool. It adjusts your flat distance based on whether your target is uphill or downhill. It does all the calculating of where the arc of the shot (short or long) will hit, relative to flat yardage/metreage. It also factors in air pressure, temperature and humidity and the virtual caddie will recommend the proper club.
Get yours at garmin.com.au
Whoop 5.0 & Whoop MG
For golfers, health and performance go hand in hand. The new Whoop 5.0 and Whoop MG wearables deliver both in a sleeker, smaller design with a remarkable 14-day battery life.
Key innovations include Heart Screener with ECG, offering FDA-cleared, on-wrist readings to detect signs of irregular heart rhythm – perfect reassurance before a round. Blood Pressure Insights provide daily systolic and diastolic estimates from the wrist, helping golfers understand how pressure levels impact both wellbeing and performance. And with Whoop Age, you can now track your physiological age, slow your pace of ageing, and enjoy the game for longer.
Add in improved sleep tracking, comprehensive fitness insights and medical-grade accuracy with Whoop MG, and you’ve got the ultimate caddie for your health – and a better understanding of why Rory McIlroy is an investor in the company.
What we love about it: The Heart Screener with ECG is seriously impressive and allows a reading to be taken anytime from the wrist and shared with your healthcare provider. Being able to detect signs of atrial fibrillation and provide irregular heart rhythm notifications is potential life-saving technology for on and off the course.
Get yours at whoop.com
Shot Scope V5
The Shot Scope V5 GPS golf watch delivers the perfect blend of precision and performance tracking – all at a very competitive price. With its clear display and simple four-button navigation, the V5 makes it easy to access GPS distances to hazards, lay-ups and greens, as well as hole maps across more than 36,000 preloaded courses worldwide.
What sets the V5 apart is its automatic shot tracking. Supplied with 16 second-generation tracking tags, it seamlessly records every shot during your round. After play, just sync to the free Shot Scope app to unlock hundreds of insights – from Strokes Gained analysis to Handicap Benchmarking – helping you pinpoint strengths and highlight areas for improvement.
What we love about it: With no hidden fees or subscription costs, the Shot Scope V5 is a straightforward path to smarter golf. More knowledge, more confidence, lower scores and no recurring payments.
Get yours at shotscope.comÂ
