Of course, I couldn't expect to have yardage books and pin placements at every course but I chose to get by with my pacing. I still wasn't sold on the Range Finder idea at this point.

They were great and helped tremendously with shot-making and planning, especially on a course I didn't know. I enjoyed the pin placement charts and the yardage books. You always think its 6-8 paces difference between front back and middle, sometimes it is 12 and sometimes it is only 4, that makes a huge difference when it's a birdie putt. I know now that those estimations were not all that accurate. I remember estimating front, middle and back of greens. We were given pin placement charts and yardage books. Having played golf my entire life I don't think It hit me how far off those sprinkler heads were until my first USGA sanctioned event. Your pace is perfect, you just don't need one. Once you learn that skill the last thing that you feel the need to do is to spend more money on a Range Finder. For the golf purists, learning the length of your pace and exactly how it equates to yardage is a skill. Some high-tech places decided to go for the GPS in the carts, the one that reminds you about the 2 for 1 hot dog deal before each swing. There are plenty of them out there (except they are never all marked) and you can get lots more information than that old white stake. Then most courses just decided that the sprinkler heads were the way to go. Remember when all that was out there was a white stake? A white stake and you had to kind of guess if it was the Out of Bounds Marker or the 150 marker? Then there was the phase of those large plastic dome-like things buried at the 150 and the 100-yard range.

Blue tees range finder