Gear: Music to your ears

We know that as soon as readers see the images of Bushnell’s new Wingman HD GPS speaker, a good many will roll their eyes and immediately click off the page, cursing the vulgar revolutionaries and uneducated philistines who deem music on the golf course a good thing.

The rest will read on, wondering what new features Bushnell has added to a product that has proven very successful among a significant section of golfers.
We’d stop short of saying every one of the golfers who do enjoy a little music as they swing are young, hip, and modern. We play with a healthy number of 50+ sticks who like nothing better than a little Django Reinhardt or Thelonius Monk, even Oasis or Pearl Jam, on the links. But we’re aware golfers like that are quite rare, and that this post will be read primarily by those under a certain age.

They’ll want to know if the new Wingman deserves a place on their cart, and if it’s a worthy successor to the Wingman View, introduced in January of 2023, and Wingman 2 which came out in January of last year.

Whether or not you replace your older device with the Wingman HD depends on how important it is to you to have the latest model of everything you own. As with the vast majority of new products, the Wingman HD may not change your life if you already own a previous Wingman, but you will certainly notice and appreciate the upgrades, the most conspicuous of which is the 3.5” Color HD Touchscreen that gives visual distances.

The Wingman View came with a screen that gave you all the necessary distances (front, center, back) visually. While it was a nice addition, it felt a bit small. And it featured black numbers on a greyish screen. Compared with the screen on the HD, it was a bit drab and you felt certain better was to come.

The Wingman 2 didn’t have a screen, relying, instead, on audible distance (which was fine if you didn’t mind the distance-giving audio cutting into your music.) The 2 did have a number of features the View didn’t though – longer battery life; a built-in microphone to take & make calls; a USB-A power bank; a USB-C charging port; and it could pair wirelessly with another Wingman 2, View, or Mini for surround sound. You could also get 1^st tee introductions and custom soundbites which were a fun touch.

The Wingman HD doesn’t quite have it all – there’s no remote which can be a very satisfying tool provided you don’t lose it; there’s no USB-C charging port; and the Wingman 2’s battery does last a little longer (you can easily  get two rounds out of the HD if your local course isn’t a six-hour-per-round nightmare) – but the stuff that’s really important to us and, we’re guessing, you, is a good deal better on the HD.

Not only do the screen and number font on the touch-screen display look a lot better, you can also pair the device with the excellent Bushnell Golf App to get GreenView and HoleView displays which, as you can probably imagine, look really cool. You can also keep a digital scorecard.

You can see up to six hazards and it’s possible to pair the HD with up to 100 other HDs (it could happen) to get the full concert experience. There’s an indoor/outdoor EQ mode meaning you can use the HD on the course, range, with your at-home simulator, or in your backyard; it’s rated IPX67 so dustproof and waterproof; the BITE Magnetic Cart Mount is present and correct; the custom audio features (1^st tee intros and on-course soundbites) are here; and the sound quality is genuinely excellent thanks to dual 15-watt speakers with passive radiators that are configured bi-directionally to give a rich, immersive, clear sound.
In the app, there’s even a setting you can select to make the volume of whatever tunes you choose increase as the cart accelerates.

$200
Available at stores in mid-October or on the Bushnell Golf website.
bushnellgolf.com