By mustang6560 on 5/26/10

Updated May 28, 2010

Thank you for your inquiry and patience regarding HoleVue.

The demand for HoleVue has been overwhelmingly positive and both our GIS Department and our team of ground mapping specialists are working diligently to produce our HoleVue images as quickly as possible without sacrificing quality. We started this process well over a year ago and are currently producing hundreds of HoleVue courses each week – and we have no plans of slowing down! Many of you have expressed concerns that we do not have your course done with HoleVue. We apologize for this inconvenience, but in most cases, it will be done over the next few weeks or few months.

To help explain why your course may not be available, it is important understand the process by which we are creating – without compromises or shortcuts – this exciting new feature. In the year 2000, we realized how many problems existed in satellite imagery and the added risk that would occur if distances were derived from images without ground verification. Golfers already have enough of a handicap without adding to it with unreliable imagery. Therefore, we set out on a quest to walk every golf course to verify the distance information on the same ground you play, just like a Tour caddie does for their Pro. Not a single caddie on Tour relies on satellite imagery. Neither do we. And neither should you.

Since the moment we recognized the problems with imagery, more than 300 skilled golfer/mappers have walked over 250,000 miles from Seattle to Singapore to provide over 27,000 course maps you can trust. Of those courses, we have remapped more than half due to changes and updates to the course over the last few years. In fact, each year we remap over 5,000 in response to changes in course layout; changes that would not be available with satellite imagery for up to three years. If we used imagery alone, we would not know, nor would know, when to trust the distance and when not to trust the distance. We are not willing to take this risk with your game, so ground verification is essential to providing accurate and reliable course maps that you know you can trust on every shot of every round.

We are equally committed to our new quest of producing reliable and quality HoleVue images. Each hole of every course with HoleVue published in our database has been rectified from our ground data. This means every target, every hazard, every green shape and every major green contour has been verified. We know of no other way to verify the accuracy of a golf course image without visiting the location and walking every hole. It is not possible to derive reliable yardage information without using survey-grade GPS equipment to eliminate any errors inherent in aerial imagery. Some producers of competitive products may use terms like “Professionally mapped and accurate courses” but if they have not verified each yardage on the ground, they simply do not know if their statement is correct. Based on our years of experience, we know differently.

The verification and correction process of each image is time intensive and expensive. This process takes 3-5 times longer than producing a similar hole graphic that is derived solely from a satellite image like our competition. But we don’t take shortcuts to mass produce HoleVue because you deserve the best information. Our competitors derive their hole graphics based on satellite and aerial imagery, which potentially jeopardizes your game. Our greens are mapped from hundreds of precision measurements. Our fairways are accurate and do not look like a cucumber or banana.

It took us five years to walk 27,000 courses to acquire ground-verified maps. While it will not take us five more years to produce HoleVue, all 27,000 will not be available next week or next month. So far, we have re-walked and rectified images for courses representing 50% of the courses our members download each year. We know that this does not help you if your course is not one of these. So the obvious question is when will my course be done and what priority are we using to get it done?

Our first priority is based upon golf course popularity. We felt the fairest approach is to use the number of downloads for a particular course by members as our first priority ranking. Based on this approach, at of the end of May, we will have HoleVue for courses representing 50% of downloads. By the end of June that percentage will grow to 65%, followed by 75% by the end of July and ultimately 85-90% by November. And just to be clear, if we were willing to take the same shortcuts as our competitors, 100% of our courses would be available now. It’s really simple – quality takes time and that’s the only approach we feel comfortable with. By October, we are confident that SkyCaddie will have the most complete and most reliable database in the game with HoleVue access, just like our basic course information in the past. That’s why we have been the #1 Rangefinder in Golf for the entire decade.

Until a course is enabled with HoleVue, we plan to release a version of QuickVue for the SGX by June 10. To see if your course has HoleVue, search our course database on www.SkyGolf.com or in CaddieSync under Courses and look for the HoleVue icon.

We thank you all for your continued support. We are committed to helping you play your best by offering advanced game management features. No other GPS company or application product in the market goes to the same level of effort or expense to ensure that its customers have the most accurate, reliable course information and hole images available. Only SkyCaddie does this for its valued SkyCaddie Members. Again, not a single caddie on Tour relies on information derived solely from satellite images or aerial images without walking the course to verify the information on a yardage book. Neither do we. And neither should you.


*Actual percentages of courses mapped with HoleVue based upon popularity might vary by region, state or country. We will endeavor to provide periodic updates on any changes in priority or progress.

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