Garmin Instinct Solar – Key Specs
(Image credit: Garmin)
Weight: 88 grams
Battery: Up to 12 days / up to 28 hours with GPS
Charging time: 2 hours
Features: waterproof to 10 ATM, heart rate monitoring, blood oxygenation monitoring, GPS, maps for 41,000 golf courses around the world … and much more
Garmin MARQ Golfer review in one sentence: a very successful combination of luxury watch, smartwatch and – of course – golf watch.
If you thought the excellent Garmin Fenix 6 Pro, or its solar sibling Garmin Fenix 6 Pro Solar were extraordinarily luxurious pieces of wearable technology, you haven’t seen anything yet. Garmin MARQ Golfer – part of a range of MARQ watches tailored for various pastimes – has an MSRP of £ 1,700 or $ 1,850.
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If you’re the kind of person who considers spending £ 1700 on a golf watch as the very definition of ‘more money than common sense’, then nothing in this review will change your mind. For those who love and can afford the finer things in life, and more specifically, golf, the Garmin MARQ Golfer could be the watch of your dreams.
Garmin MARQ Golfer: price and availability
Garmin MARQ Golfer is not widely available from retailers but can be purchased directly from Garmin in many countries. Shipping is free, you’ll be happy to know, after spending nearly $ 2,000.
• Buy MARQ Golfer for $ 1850 from Garmin USA
• Buy MARQ Golfer for £ 1700 from Garmin UK
Garmin MARQ Golfer review: what it’s like to wear
Testing this watch was fun and I have to admit I felt like a million bucks wearing it as I made my way into my local class. My game might stink but hey, I’m wearing a £ 1700 golf watch, so I’m still winning something, right?
The real beauty of the MARQ Golfer, however, is that you can also wear it off the pitch. It’s stylish enough to eat at dinner, serves all the usual smartwatch needs – namely: notifications – and is practical enough to meet all of your health and wellness needs.
As far as I know, it contains all key features found in Garmin running and fitness watches. There’s heart rate monitoring, of course, and also a blood oxygen sensor and support for a wide range of advanced fitness metrics.
Whatever fitness activity you are in, the MARQ has your back. Running, biking, swimming, whatever. It also monitors your sleep patterns, stress levels and heart rate, and can issue alerts if your ticker or blood oxygen levels are misbehaving.
It’s chock full of everything you’d expect from a smartwatch and more, while the five-button setup makes it extremely simple to use.
Be warned though, this watch doesn’t like you being idle. Sitting on the couch watching television for any length of time will make him vibrate irritably and order you to “get moving!”. I have had enough from my partner, without even being yelled at by a smartwatch, so this put my patience to the test a bit until I disabled that particular feature. Other than that, I must say I love this watch.
GARMIN MARQ GOLFER REVIEW: GOLF FEATURES AND USER INTERFACE
You might be surprised to learn that MARQ doesn’t really work on the golf course nothing that Garmin’s other golf watches don’t. Don’t be discouraged though. After all, a Rolex doesn’t actually do anything a Timex can’t do, but that doesn’t stop people from buying Rolex. And the MARQ Golfer is still a bargain compared to the price of a Rolex.
So what does the MARQ Golfer do on the golf course? I will guide you through it …
A click on a button will bring up the activity menu from which you will select the Golf option. The watch will then use its GPS to determine your location and load route details – with over 41,000 preloaded routes Garmin almost certainly has you covered.
When you start playing, it will ask you which club you used. Make your selection and then walk towards your ball. The MARQ will show you the distance covered by your shot and you will also be given the yards at the front, center and back of the green, as well as a detailed analysis of any lurking dangers.
When you hit your second shot, the watch will record the distance of the tee shot and then ask you again to enter the club you used.
It will do this with every stroke until it reaches the green, at which point it will wait until you finish the hole and ask you to enter your score, how many putts you need, if you have had penalty shots and if you hit the fairway or miss. left or right.
All this data is logged and after syncing with your smartphone it will be sent to your Gamin Connect account so you can keep track of how your game is progressing and where you can improve. Everything is there in great detail, scorecards, distances with each club, even interesting little graphs showing your longest journey.
After wearing the watch for five rounds, the Virtual Caddy comes into play, and this is where the fun begins really it begins. The Virtual Caddy will provide advice on club selection based on the data collected about your game, also analyzing factors such as wind speed. This is an invaluable tool for those tough times when you’re in between clubs and uncertainty can creep in.
Hazard View allows golfers to quickly scroll through each obstacle on the upcoming shot with critical distance information.
Another specific feature of golf is the PlaysLike distance. This takes into account elevation changes. You won’t need it often, but when you do it is extremely useful.
Pro type 1: Make sure notifications are turned off along the way, otherwise you run the risk of it vibrating at the most inopportune moments, like the beginning of your backswing – yes, I learned the hard way.
As mentioned, the software used by the MARQ is the same as you will find in other cheaper Garmin watches, such as the Approach S62. You probably wouldn’t wear the S62 off the pitch – well, I certainly wouldn’t – and herein lies the main difference.
Overall, the MARQ is extremely easy to use, especially after playing a round or two with it and it becomes second nature.
Pro type 2: Included in the box are three Approach CT10 club tracking sensors for advanced tracking capabilities, including locations, distances and club type. If you want CT10 trackers on each club, they need to be purchased separately and will cost you around £ 69 per pack of three.
Garmin MARQ Golfer: characteristics of the smartwatch
What else does Garmin MARQ Golfer do besides help you on the golf course? It might be a better question; what it does not do it it does?
As with the rest of the MARQ range – Athlete, Adventurer, Captain, Aviator, Pilot and Commander – the Golfer comes with premium smartwatch features, including built-in music storage, Garmin Pay for contactless payments, smart notifications, daily activity tracking, as well such as wrist-based heart rate and a Pulse Ox sensor on the wrist.
The length of this review barely gives me a chance to scratch the surface of the Garmin MARQ Golfer’s feature list. It’s not just longer than your arm; it’s longer than Mr. Tickle’s arms.
The MARQ is a watch that you can always wear on any occasion because it is elegant as hell. When you take into consideration all the other things it does, you never have to take it off, aside from charging it of course.
On that note, the battery life is impressive. You’ll have 12 days in smartwatch mode or 28 hours in GPS mode, and an added bonus is that it takes almost no time to fully charge.
GARMIN MARQ GOLFER REVIEW: BUILD QUALITY AND ERGONOMICS
The MARQ is constructed of high quality materials, a 46mm titanium case and a ceramic bezel with custom engraved 1-18 golf hole markings. A domed sapphire lens and an always-on, sunlight-readable display also distinguish it as a piece of high-quality technology. It’s not as attractive as an OLED screen, but it’s more practical and allows for much longer battery life
It comes with a choice of a triton green jacquard nylon strap or a green silicone alternative. Since the MARQ is compatible with Garmin’s QuickFit watch band solution, switching between different bands is quick and easy, and you can transform the look of your watch by simply fitting a different colored band. Maybe even to match it with whatever outfit you are doing sports during the course that day.
After all, if you are paying £ 1700 for a watch, then what are the other few hundred colored fashion accessory bands? For most people, though, green will do just fine.
GARMIN MARQ GOLFER REVIEW: VERDICT
This is comfortably the best golf watch currently on the market, although at this price it really should be. The main competition of the MARQ comes from the similarly priced Tag Heuer Connected Golf Edition. I haven’t tried it, but purely in terms of looks, the MARQ has a definite advantage.
If you’re just looking for something to help you on the golf course, some of the cheaper alternatives would make a lot more sense to you. The Garmin Approach range of watches will do everything you need for a much more affordable price.
However, while I wouldn’t buy one myself, I would call the Garmin MARQ Golfer expensive rather than overpriced. If you have the money, choose the MARQ because you will struggle to find something better.