Garmin Approach S50 vs Shot Scope V5: slick watch or free game data?

Buy the Garmin Approach S50 if you want the polished, do-everything golf smartwatch — a gorgeous AMOLED touchscreen, slope-adjusted distances, music, contactless pay and a watch you'll genuinely wear off the course. Buy the Shot Scope V5 if you'd rather spend roughly half as much and get something the Garmin doesn't offer at all: automatic shot tracking and full strokes-gained stats on your own game, free for life with no subscription ever. This isn't really a fight over which watch is 'better' — they're built for two different golfers. The S50 is the slick experience; the V5 is the data.

What each watch actually is

The S50 is Garmin's mid-range hero — the watch that borrows nearly everything good about the flagship S70 for a lot less. You get a 1.2-inch colour AMOLED touchscreen, 43,000-plus preloaded courses with no subscription, PlaysLike slope-adjusted distances, AutoShot round tracking, wrist heart rate, and the smartwatch trimmings Garmin does better than anyone: music storage, Garmin Pay and everyday notifications. On the course it feels every bit a premium device; off it, it's a watch you'll actually keep on. Battery is a solid 15-plus hours in GPS mode. At around $450 it sits firmly in premium territory.

The V5 comes at the problem from the opposite direction. It's a proper GPS watch too — full-colour hole maps, front, middle and back numbers, hazards and layups across 36,000 courses — but its headline trick is the 16 lightweight tags that screw into your grips and automatically record every shot you hit. After a few rounds it hands you over 100 tour-level stats, including strokes gained, that show exactly where your handicap is leaking. Crucially, all of that software is free for life — no monthly fee, ever. RRP is $300, but it's regularly discounted to around $225 on Amazon, which is when I'd pounce.

The real split: experience vs insight

This is the whole decision, so be honest with yourself about which golfer you are. The S50 wins on experience — it's the nicer object, the screen is brighter and sharper, the touchscreen is quicker to poke around, and the music/pay/notifications turn it into a smartwatch you'll wear to the gym and the pub. If you want one watch for your life and your golf, and you like your kit to feel premium, the Garmin is the easy answer and I wouldn't talk you out of it.

The V5 wins on insight, and it's insight the Garmin simply cannot match. AutoShot on the S50 logs your drives and approaches loosely, but it's a convenience feature, not an analytics engine. The V5's tag system captures your whole bag, putts included, and turns it into a strokes-gained breakdown that tells you the uncomfortable truth — that you're not losing shots off the tee like you assumed, you're losing them from 100 yards and in. For an improver who wants to practise the right things, that's transformative, and getting it with no subscription makes the V5 arguably the best-value game tracker in golf. The question to ask: do you want a lovely watch, or do you want to know where your shots go?

Price, and what you're really paying for

The gap here is stark and it should weigh on the decision. The S50 costs roughly double the V5's typical street price, and that premium buys you the screen, the smartwatch features and the Garmin ecosystem polish — not more useful golf data. The V5 is chunkier and its styling is functional rather than pretty, and you have to remember to tag your putts for the stats to stay honest. But if your priority is understanding your game rather than glancing at a beautiful yardage, you're getting more golf-improvement value from the cheaper watch. Neither is overpriced for what it is; they're just charging you for different things. If you're weighing a watch against a laser instead, we settle that in GPS watch vs laser, and the wider format question in GPS watch vs phone vs handheld.

Who should buy the Garmin Approach S50

Buy the S50 if you want a single watch that does everything well and looks good doing it: crisp AMOLED maps, slope distances, and a genuine everyday smartwatch with music and contactless pay. It's for the golfer who values the polished experience and the Garmin ecosystem, doesn't mind paying premium money for it, and isn't fussed about deep post-round analytics. The one honest gripe worth knowing: it uses a fiddly proprietary charging cable that costs extra to replace. Read the full Garmin Approach S50 review for the deep dive.

Who should buy the Shot Scope V5

Buy the V5 if you want to actually lower your scores with data and you'd rather own that insight outright than rent it. It's for mid-to-high handicappers who'll commit to tagging their shots and want a real strokes-gained picture of where they're bleeding strokes — all with no subscription and at roughly half the Garmin's price. Skip it if you want a slim, pretty everyday smartwatch, or if you know you won't keep up the tagging discipline, in which case a simpler distance watch does the core job for less. Our full Shot Scope V5 review covers the tag system in detail.

The verdict

S50 for the slick, do-everything Garmin experience you'll wear everywhere; V5 for automatic shot tracking and free-for-life strokes-gained data on half the budget. Neither is a mistake — they're two honest answers to two different questions. Both feature in our best golf GPS guide alongside the rest of the field, and you can dig into the wider category on the GPS and rangefinders hub.