When it’s time to pick a number, do you trust experience or a device? A look at when each earns your confidence.
Caddies have a long history in golf, and while there are still some clubs in the United States that have caddie programs, the vast majority of golfers don’t have a chance to use one when they play. I’m among them. So, any time I can play with a caddie,I get excited because it elevates the experience. When I can’t, I utilize a virtual caddie in the form of an Arccos Caddie on my iPhone.
I share this because during the first two months of 2026, I played two rounds of golf, 2,500 miles apart, and had a chance to use a human caddie each time. One caddie made every shot feel like a conversation with a trusted partner. The other turned a resort round into a test of my patience, and got my thinking that in some cases, a virtual caddie might be better than a real person. Here’s why.
In January, I had a chance to play the Roost Course at Cabot Citrus Farms in Florida. The air crisp, and the greens were smooth as glass, and the sun warmed up before setting the sky on fire at sundown. My caddie, Big Mac, introduced himself on the first tee with a handshake and a smile: “Let’s have some fun with this.”
Three holes in, he had me figured out and dialed in. He steered me away from trouble. He let me read greens, and then either confirmed what my eyes saw or pointed out what I was missing. He didn’t waste words, but had plenty of encouragement, a few jokes, and clearly knew the course well.
The course record was never in danger, but I played above myself that day because Big Mac made The Roost seem solvable. He didn’t just carry my bag. Big Mac carried the day, turning four hours of golf into something I’d replayed in my head numerous times in the days that followed.
A month later in Southern California, at a notable resort with beautiful views of the Pacific, a caddie I’ll refer to as Loud Larry joined my foursome and established a completely different tone from the first tee. Apparently, he hates silence. The tee box was his stage, and he had a cringy habit of growling at the ball like a pirate nearly every time someone hit a putt. “C’mon! Roll out yeahhhhhh!!!!!”
After losing two drivers right, I decided to use my 3-wood off the tee on the sixth hole to get the ball in play. Loud Larry had already grabbed my driver and marched it to the tee while I jotted my score. Caddies do this to help speed up play, and when you don’t know the course well, there is subtle pressure to follow their lead. I pulled the 3-wood anyway, which raised Larry’s eyebrows. After hitting the ball down the left side of the fairway, then hitting a 7-iron on the green and taking two putts, I had the ho-hum par I wanted.
As annoying as that was, my real frustration was Loud Larry provided terrible numbers. And, apparently, he didn’t feel the 15-20 mph wind we were playing in.
“I need you to give me 190 yards, David,” he said in the ninth fairway. “Even 195 is okay.”
As he walked off to give bad advice to another player in our group, I zapped the flag with an Arccos Smart laser rangefinder. The hole was 174 yards away, downwind. The device said the “plays like” distance was 168. Our caddie was at least two clubs off, before factoring in the wind, so from that moment forward, I tuned him out completely.
From there, I lasered everything that looked farther than 50 yards to get “plays like” adjustments that factored in wind and elevation changes. The topographic green maps in the smartphone app showed me ridges, tiers and safe miss zones I couldn’t see from the fairway.
No more bogeys and doubles. I started hitting fairways, making pars, and my confidence grew. The round didn’t just stabilize, it improved. Larry still yammered away, but my real caddie was magnetically stuck to my golf cart.
So, here’s the question: When, if ever, is it okay to tune out a caddie and start paying attention to technology instead? And, should we feel guilty about it or embrace it?
For recreational golfers like us, the ones with day jobs, who rarely practice but want clear, helpful advice, the answer is fuzzy. Virtual caddies like Arccos aren’t here to replace Big Macs. They aren’t going to help you find your ball. They aren’t going to give you a mental boost after a few bad shots. They won’t tell you the guy in the halfway house makes a mean breakfast burrito, but avoid the egg salad.
They can, however, replace Loud Larrys. Lasers don’t guess yardages or grab the wrong club. Several of today’s premium systems create “plays like” distance by calculating the actual straight-line distance, then factoring in the up-or-down percentage, plus the wind, temperature and altitude numbers. Green maps are so accurate and revealing the PGA Tour doesn’t allow them during tournament rounds. Devices stay objective, they’re tireless and drama-free, and when they make club recommendations based on your previously-hit shots, you can trust them more than someone who just met you on the first tee 45 minutes ago.
And for those of you who insist on living an analog life in today’s digital world, understand that modern algorithms can deliver what solid local caddies always have — precise distances, smart targets, green intelligence — without the personality tax. No yelling at your ball. No cringy jokes. Just truth, every shot.
That said, people like Big Mac have things even the best tech lacks: emotional radar to reset you after a double, course stories that make holes memorable, and live reads on your swing changing hole-by-hole. A good caddie elevates golf beyond numbers, into something social and strategic. Tech raises the floor, but a good caddie can raise the ceiling.
At the end of the day, as long as you are not bothering other golfers, how you choose to spend your day on the course should be up to you. You set aside time to play, arranged the day with your friends and paid the greens fee. If you have access to a good caddie and want to use his or her advice, great! If you get stuck with a caddie that, for whatever reason, just doesn’t work for you, tactfully explain to him or her that you like using a laser or GPS device. Explain that you find the information reassuring and that it’s part of your routine.
Golf’s always evolved: persimmon to titanium, yardage books to GPS. Virtual caddies are the next step, making elite information available to every hacker who wants it, regardless of the course he or she is playing. Big Mac would approve.
Loud Larry? He’d probably yell at the screen.