I think I can provide some useful insight here as I have used and own both. Earlier this year I bought the V3, as my frustration with waiting on the link boiled over. My biggest gripe was the phone in the pocket but also I wanted to use my phone to play music at times. I have been an arccos user since shortly after they came out and would estimate that I have well over 10,000 shots in the system. I probably have about 15 rounds in V3. Here are my observations:
On Course Use:
The V3 is awesome in that it also serves as a golf watch. The watch itself is a great product and I have continued to use it even after the link came out (more on that later)
The Caddie app is very useful when I am playing a new course, I don’t rely on the caddie feature much - I try to do my round planning before I play. But for checking on a specific carry distance or getting a distance to a specific spot on the green it is very useful. For non-tournament rounds I also really like the expanded plays as feature. I usually expand the breakdown and eliminate the wind calc and replace with my own estimate. I have found that the other adjustments are very accurate (barometric pressure, temp, and elevation) and referring to them in casual play has helped me better estimate these conditions when playing in tournament rounds.
Post Round Editing:
There’s just no comparison here, the arccos app is so much easier to make changes after your round. I love shotscope’s app but it takes me probably twice as long to make the little tweaks that I do every round.
My current process (playing with the link) is to mark the pin using the link and then write down first putt distance on my scorecard. After the round I go in and make sure the first putt is in the right place and the right distance. I rely heavily on the proximity stat so I am very careful to make sure this is very accurate. This process is very quick with arccos and very accurate.
Stats:
Before strokes gained I would have told you that the stats engines are very comparable. Strokes gained is a huge game changer for me. The ability to see specifically in what part of your game you are giving up strokes is a huge benefit. For instance, right after they came out with strokes gained I learned that I was giving up half a stroke around on approach shots from the tee (im a 2.8 hcp so this is a huge revelation). I quit using a tee on most par 3s and have seen immediate improvement. There are dozens of other small insights like that that I think are extremely helpful. I also use club data in arccos to estimate my dispersion with different clubs in different conditions and have found that using this data to plan rounds has been highly effective. Shotscope also has a great stats engine but with the recent changes at arccos it is a clear winner here.
Verdict:
I had quit using arccos entirely earlier this year, eventually I switched to shotscope and enjoyed it but found that the post round editing hassle made me a little less ocd about my accuracy of my stats which is not a good thing. Once link came out I switched back and I am absolutely loving it again. I am getting ready to leave for Pinehurst tomorrow and am planning on playing with the shotscope watch and using the link to track the round.
Hopefully this is helpful, let me know if you have any follow up questions - ill try to keep an eye on this post.
