Birdsoft Blog

The Year of Golf…

My silly New Years Resolution this year was that it was the “Year of Golf”. It was a fun little game I played so that I can hype up the fact that I want to play a little more golf and hopefully get back to the level I was right out of college. Don’t worry I’m not good…

It is kind of a built-in excuse to play more and to finally replace my irons that I bought right out of college(~12 years ago). They were nice clubs but at the time I dont think they pushed custom fitting clubs as much. Im a little on the taller side so have been playing with clubs that were over an inch too short for me for 12 years. It definitely made me bend my knees but… Anyway, I already have the new Taylor Made Irons and had them lengthened, and if the driving range stays accurate I may have added 12-15 yards to my iron play. Nice.

We also moved to a location where some really nice courses are more accessible along with a good driving range really close. So Ive already taken advantage of the range quite a bit for my ‘Year of Golf’. Its a good quick stress reliever when my head is spinning with C++. Oh, and I also took the oppertunity to update my wife’s clubs so she plays a few more times too…

And finally, my father-in-law, brother-in-law, and I are semi-competitive and besides fishing the other competition that we have fun with on our ‘Up North’ trip is golfing. I was pretty dominant for a few years, but now they both have purchased clubs and taken up playing a little more, so… I better too…

But the point of this as it pertains to Mobile is that with this I have set aside a few weeks to update one of my popular applications, FairwayWatch - our golf scorecard application. I plan on using it more, but if Im going to do that I will need to have it compatible with Standard devices(I carry a Q). So what Im looking for is feedback on what would make this a must have for all you golfers out there? Here are some things I am planning on or already have added…

Standard Support - I’m porting it to Win32 and WM5 and above only. Using it with the soft keys makes it infinitely more usable one handed, and obviously it has to be for Standard Devices. In doing so I also get to use our new editing and options list based dialogs.
Other Interface updates - we have ideas for a bunch of things to optimize the use so it is much easier to use on the course.
320×320 Screen and better Treo support. Obviously some of the things above help with this too.
A Facelift - Color Themes and way bettter looking Buttons and better use of the screen space. Some themes will be light on dark for better contrast in sunlight.
More Statistic Tracking - We have an idea on some but would love to hear more ideas…
Internet course library from within the program
A desktop verison with score card printing and multiple round analysis which will also allow for easier course entry and basic synching. Because of the switch to Win32 we will have to use slightly new file formats so conversion utilities will probably end up in the Desktop version.

We are thinking it would be good to combine all rounds into one file for each course instead of separate files which would make analysis much nicer. Thoughts…??? Other ideas? What would you like to see…

We want it to be your year of golf too…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 5:26 pm and is filed under Birdsoft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “The Year of Golf…”

Administrator Says:
May 14th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Ok, so I will have to do this in tiers. And won’t quite get to the Smartphone support in this first version.

I do have a really good update almost done for Pro and Classic Devices, with a few more things planned yet before I release. It will be great one-handed and will allow me to do so much more a lot easier once I can get back to it. Im also going to do a little work on a Better Desktop version for this release. So if you see this and want to give support for advancing the application, the more motivation the better!! But the year of golf is going all right golf wise(I actually got an awesome Birdie on the last hole of my first Nine) so… Thats motivation enough….

Thanks
Administrator Says:
June 19th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Yeah, its still not out… Why? Oh I decided to add support for this neat little thing called GPS… There just arent that many programs out there that dont charge you an arm and a leg for GPS support and well, its not overly difficult…. So Ill try to finish this up and then follow with a better companion desktop version and a couple more features…
Administrator Says:
August 26th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Update on the “Up North” battle….

Well, I did some golfing up north. Ive climbed back down into the 40s and the new clubs have stayed long(actually Im closer to 15-20 yards longer now) but I still want to get out and break 45. Im not even sure I did that when I was right out of college, but surprisingly having more length and only teeing off with a 2 hybrid so I go straight off the tee actually tends to help your game… Who would have thought… Anyway, I had a chance for 45 up north, and blew it the last hole… Got a 7 for a 47…

So the up north tally for the one person other than me that might be interested…

Played Barker Lake Golf Club, which was an old gangsters club, and it was awesome as on a beautiful night my wife, brother-in-law and me had the course all to ourselves.. I shot a 48…

Then brought everyone(including our 3 year old) and I played with my father-in-law, brother-in-law and wife and shot a 35 on the par 3 course up there… Father-in-law… Around 50! +1

Then we played 18 at the pretty scruffy Couderay Course (though extremely cheap). First round shot the 47 with father-in-law a 49… +2

Then the 2nd nine my brother-in-law and I decided to loosen up and enjoy some drinks and didnt realize that someone tightened up and instead of having fun was almost annoyingly serious the 2nd nine.. Yeah, cuz even though I had won the first 2 Up north ‘Nines’ it became obvious that if he beat me by more than 2 strokes on this back nine, he was gonna use that as braggin rights back home. Fortunately for him, we didnt even notice until about hole 5, and the course was setup perfectly for his somewhat unconventional game(meaning he doesnt really have a pitch so runs everything), and I didnt figure out the small out of shape greens all day(I had 3 three-putts in the first nine and 4 in the 2nd nine). And well, by hole 8 we were secretly rooting him on as he had a VERY nice score going. Hole 9 we actually helped him look for his 2nd shot for like 10 minutes so he wouldnt have to take a penalty stroke… He got a 7 for his all time low score of 43.. I got a 51, so he did get the nod for 18 and I bought him a beer. -1

And then we had to bail from “Up North” early for a wedding, but the Sunday morning after, we were still around so we went to our local back home course for Nine with one of his friends… and the guy that shot a 43 just three days before proceeded to shoot a 73…. on NINE!…. I got another 48 I believe. So… +1

I think that should really put me at +2 if we break it down by nines.. I just now want to have my game of my life… Sheesh…. It never really has all come together.. Im about one bad hole away…
katlego Says:
September 18th, 2008 at 1:49 am
Just got FairwayWatch and looking forward to using it on Sunday. I’ve golf software from 2 of your competitors and have found that although it comprehensive, it has many features that we weekend-golfers don’t really need. I’m glad something so simple came along. Please add the following in the upcoming upgrades though.

*Stableford scoring using handicaps. At the moment, the Stableford points mean nothing without takking into account the players’ handicaps and stroke holes
*GPS distance tracking from tee to ball
*Graphic representation of putting results

Otherwise, looks like a great product. Will give feedback after my round. BTW, I’m down in South Africa, where we play golf all year round…great weather…

You must be logged in to post a comment.

The Year of Golf…

4 Responses to “The Year of Golf…”

Leave a Reply