Noteworthy: The NoteCaddie Mobile App Could Be Your Secret Weapon

A great new product being developed in Colorado could have a profound impact on your game

Tony Dear

Have you ever watched golf on TV, seen a player discussing with his caddie how to play a shot, watched the two of them refer to the caddie’s notebook that’s full of info on carry distances, green contours, prevailing wind directions, etc., and thought how cool it would be to have something like that when you played?

Well, good news, because now there definitely is an app for that.

Not quite actually, but there will be soon, once its developers have completed the project and rolled the product out sometime in the spring of next year.

NoteCaddie is a really cool new app that will allow you to play a course and speak or type notes on to images of the holes for future reference. You also get green close-ups on which you can draw contour lines and the direction of break. Even cooler is that while the product is still be built and tweaked, readers can contribute ideas (and cash) to its progress – more on that further on. And best yet, it was conceived and is being developed by two guys from Broomfield, not 35 minutes from this publication’s headquarters in Centennial.

Louis Oviedo and Chris Takimoto are the creators in question. Whilst not techy code-writers themselves (both have day jobs at mortgage service company ServiceLink, but they have found a firm of programmers to complete the really complex stuff), they have spent several months brainstorming the idea. Both are very keen golfers – Takimoto a 13-handicapper and a former caddie at Denver Country Club, Oviedo a single-digit handicapper with hopes of becoming a scratch man before long. He plays his golf at Todd Creek in Thornton, and Westminster’s Legacy Ridge and Heritage at Westmoor.

“I watched players and caddies taking notes during practice rounds and using them during competitive play,” says Oviedo. “I wondered why I never saw amateurs and club golfers doing anything like that because it seemed like a relatively simple way to shoot better scores. I looked for something in golf stores that would facilitate doing it, but never really found anything.”

Takimoto recently test-drove the earliest version of the product, playing the same course twice in two days. On day two, he improved his score by an impressive nine shots thanks to the excellent information he had at his fingertips.  “And not only did my score get way better, my level of enjoyment increased significantly too,” he says. “I had never looked at a course that way before. It got me concentrating so much better, and focusing on all the factors I’d need to consider before playing the shot. And it didn’t affect the time it took me to complete the round at all.”

Oviedo says the most popular feature, besides being able to record green contours, will be ‘sharing’ which gives one golfer access to another’s notes (obviously you can withhold your notes if you don’t want anyone else seeing them).

Before long Oviedo says players will be able to print out the notes they take, but for now his focus is on the first-build. “It’s pretty exciting,” he says. “I truly believe this will help people play better golf and enjoy the game more.”

Cost has not yet been determined, but Oviedo believes an annual membership will cost about $20. The NoteCaddie Kickstarter campaign will be launched on November 19^th.
More info: notecaddie.com

RELATED LINKS

Is a Better Swing a Click Away?

A Review of the new Titleist 716 AP1 & AP2 Irons, 816H1 & 816H2 Hybrids, 716 CB & MB irons

Let's Do Launch: The SkyTrak Launch Monitor

Colorado AvidGolfer is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it. It publishes eight issues annually and proudly delivers daily content via www.coloradoavidgolfer.com.