Case Study #1: Flaghunting on the iPad

*Full Disclosure* We sent Bryan our current version of the Premium Bundle for free. In return, I asked him how the process worked on his iPad, as we will be developing more features for iPad only users in the future.

I’ve always been a fan of Yardage and Greens Books. Ever since I first used one I wondered why every course didn’t provide them. When I started playing golf, we didn’t have range finders, GPS’s and smart phones. Anytime you went to a new course, it was like walking around in the dark. We eyeballed everything off the tee and paced out yardages based off course markers. Unlike today, where you can shoot the distance to a fairway bunker off the tee with a range finder, or use satellite images on your phone to better understand and plot your way around a hole, back then you just had to play the hole as you began to discover it.

This is what made these books invaluable. It was your roadmap to each hole, it allowed you to see what was coming, and in a game where course management is vital to you not drawing snowman’s on your scorecard, it allowed you plan ahead and strategize each hole. Starting with knowing where the green was, how it was shaped and contoured, then being able to work your way back to the tee, helping you decide what the best way to play the hole was.

After a long hiatus from golf, and since recently being able to play again, I tried the current technologies and devices available. While there isn’t anything inherently wrong with GPS’s and range finders, neither of them, used individually or together, offer the convince and level of detail Yardage and Greens Books do. Once you’ve used one, you won’t understand how you played without one.

This is how I ended up meeting Zach and his company Flaghunting. I was looking for a solution and Flaghunting offered what I wanted, but I felt intimidated by the process as I am not an artistic person or literate in illustrator programs. A further stumbling block was the fact that I use an iPad for work, I’d not owned a laptop/desktop for sometime now.

I’d found out that Zach was looking for someone to try out his product on the iPad. After his assurance that it wasn’t as complicated as I’d thought, I agreed to take him up on his offer to try the product out and to give him my feedback as I went through the process. He sent me the care package and off into the darkness I went.