Voice Caddie SC200 Swing Caddie Review

When it comes to the evolution of golf, the only thing rivaling the technology of the equipment is the philosophy of how the game is taught.  Swing data and analytics might be the biggest leap in golf since the introduction of the urethane ball.  Top teachers are using $20,000 launch monitors like Trackman and FlightScope to analyze every bit of ball data to maximize performance and fit clubs.  Unfortunately for most of us, that price tag is out of reach, and time for lessons is not easy to come by.

Luckily, Voice Caddie has entered the launch monitor market with the SC200 Swing Caddie. The SC200 is a mostly full featured portable launch monitor that features the same Doppler technology as Trackman, but costs about 1/50 the price.  I took the SC200 out to my local driving range to put it through the paces.

I’ll start by saying that this thing is easy to use and a ton of fun.  You put some batteries in it, set it behind your ball and it tells you — like, literally out loud — how far you hit it.  It’s cool as hell.  It’s also pretty accurate.  I used my Bushnell Tour V3 to scope the distance to all the flags on the range, and the SC200 would call out a number pretty darn close to the flag I was aiming for.

Inside 100 yards, it was money.  It’s a very satisfying feeling when your launch monitor calls out “79 yards,” and before your ball even lands, you know how close to the flag you’ll be.  It should be noted, however, that the farther out you get, the less accurate the numbers become.  The accuracy of the unit (+/- 5% on carry distance), when you’re operating in the 200+ yard range, it can get nearly a club out of whack, but in reality, I found it to be within about 5 yards 80-90% of the time.

The other thing I really enjoyed about the SC200 were the games.  My personal favorite is Approach Mode, which assigns you a random target distance between 50-100 yards and gives you points based on how close you are.  I feel like this would be a fun tool to take to the pitch and putt, or to break out on an empty course.  I don’t really have any evidence to back this up, but I felt like the instant feedback helped me get the most out of my practice.  This unit will allow you to try new things and see immediately if they’re working or not.

There are a couple of small issues, most notably, the lack of spin rate.  The other downside is that it does have an issue picking up shots sometimes.  I would say about 5-10% of my shots would not report a number, or would report something that was clearly wrong.  That number should shrink for better players, as I found that the better I struck a ball, the more likely the unit was to pick it up well.  Neither of these issues are anything more than a minor inconvenience, and honestly, it’s just sort of the give and take of saving $18,000 on a portable launch monitor.

Specs:

• Approximately 6″ x 3″ x 1″ in size. About the size of a thick smartphone.
• Doppler radar sensor
• Measures carry distance, swing speed, ball speed and smash factor.
• Accuracy +/- 3% (ball speed), +/- 5% (carry distance)
• 4 x AAA Batteries

Pros:

• Portable
• Easy to use
• Pretty accurate
• Easy to adjust specs to your clubs
• Terribly fun

Cons:

• Misses a fair amount of shots
• Doesn’t measure spin (calculated)