It's prime golfing season here in The Praire, and as such, we caddies down at the Garmin shack have been quite busy. Recently, we added 500+ new courses to the catalog of subscription-free courses available for the Approach G5 bringing the total number of courses to 9,400+. 

I also had the unique pleasure of putting the Approach into tournament play, but in a not-so-conventional kind of way. While it wasn't quite the Tom Watson Challenge, it was a great opportunity to use the Approach as a 'deciding-which-ball-is-best-in-a-four-man-scramble' machine.Turns out, arming each of the four team members with an Approach is perfect for figuring out who hit the best drive when your foursome is spread all over the fairway. It was particularly helpful to use the Touch-Targeting feature to determine who had the best angle to the pin. We ended up shooting -12 under, only three shots off the lead. Not bad for an afternoon of "product testing."

Garmin's fitness guru Jake and I teamed up for a few video tutorials that show off all the functions of the Approach G5. Being that Jake is our resident marathoner/biker/in-shape dude, I handle the golfing duties while Jake explains how to get the most from your Approach. If you're one of those, whatta-ya-call-it, exercisers, then Jake has a few more cool toys worth checking out, or so I'm told. 

Finally, this humble caddy hit the road for a little R&R over the holiday. And as we like to do at Garmin, I loaned out a few new gadgets to put through their paces. I commandeered a nuvi 1250 for the drive to Chicago and Michigan. Saving a few bucks with ecoRoute helped us buy much needed golf balls after we slapped it all over Cog Hill, home of the BMW Championship. And the cityXplorer maps helped us navigate the big city like seasoned Chi-town caddies.

We're continuing to update and map courses all over the States, so keep checking back in for more updates. If your favorite course isn't mapped yet, drop us a line and we'll get cracking on it right away.