TAG Heuer’s New Connected Caliber E5 x TaylorMade Edition is Perfect for Completing Your Golf Bucket List
With the launch of TAG Heuer’s new Connected Caliber E5 x TaylorMade Edition this week, its golf connection reaches new heights. We took the opportunity not only to review this new timepiece but also to use its capabilities to assemble a quintet of challenging bucket-list golf destinations where it could certainly help you improve your game.
By Mike Espindle
Executive Editor
Since its relatively early debut in 2015, TAG Heuer’s Connected watch has consistently presented an elevated, thoughtful option in the “smart watch” category as the Swiss watch industry’s first luxury timepiece of that type. And one of the lifestyle/software arenas where the Connected has undeniably excelled is in the world of golf.
Thus, this week’s launch of the new 45mm sandblasted titanium Connected Caliber E5 x TaylorMade Edition, which brings together the design codes of both TAG Heuer and leading California-based golf gear maker TaylorMade to create an offering that is certainly course-ready on the outside, was particularly exciting for golf fans. (And that is before anyone even knew that this watch’s $2,550 price tag also includes an exclusive TaylorMade Spider ZT x TAG Heuer putter and other co-branded accessories.)
But, as with all TAG Heuer Connected watches, the real game is on the inside. Of course, you can expect the established functions of scorekeeping and logging personal performance data in this new timepiece. However, in concert with its dedicated TAG Heuer Golf smartphone app, this new package brings you a yard or two closer to the pin.
The watch captures every stroke and shot unobtrusively with GPS data while you play and, with an exclusive TaylorMade analysis algorithm, builds a personal “strokes-gained” metric of your performance. Where you gain and lose strokes over time compared to an established baseline can be a clear, clinical tool in figuring out where in your game you may need to do a little work – don’t ignore it if you can get it.
Furthermore, as a Connected watch, it can access TAG Heuer’s astounding downloadable database of guides to about 40,000 golf courses, with 2D and 3D maps that include details on distances, hazards, and even club suggestions for tackling each hole.
So, while choosing only five dream golf destinations from a list of 40,000 presented something of a challenge for us, accessing essential course-specific information and insight for anywhere you want to play could be more of an easy putt “gimme” for you.
Kauri Cliffs, New Zealand
In terms of sheer visual drama, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more breathtaking location than the Kauri Cliffs golf course at the luxurious five-star Rosewood Kauri Cliffs resort in New Zealand’s Northland.
Please keep the word “cliffs” well in mind when you play this par-72 championship course designed by architect David Harman (who happens to be a course design protégé of Jack Nicklaus’).
The majority of holes play out along a rolling farmland plateau, but six are situated right on the edge of the dramatic 150-foot cliffs that drop right down into Takou Bay and the churning Pacific. Certainly not dangerous per se, but psychologically intimidating to say the least.
Muirfield Village Golf Club, Columbus, Ohio
While the sleepy mid-Ohio city of Columbus may not be a frequent entry on most bucket lists, playing a round at the Muirfield Village Golf Club course, in the nearby suburb of Dublin, OH, means you’re shooting on a track nicknamed “Jack’s Place.”
That’s because Jack Nicklaus designed, founded, and built the par-72 course in his native Ohio, and it has served as the “Golden Bear’s” masterpiece since it opened in 1974. In fact, since 1976, Muirfield has been the home of the PGA’s annual star-filled, charity Memorial Tournament, one of the organization’s longest-running traditions and one of the only ones to occur at the same venue year after year.
Championship Course at the Royal Dornoch Golf Club, Scotland
Certainly, a dream round played in golf’s ancestral home of Scotland is high on any elite duffer’s wish list. While there are many “bragging rights” courses you can play in the Auld Country, the Royal Dornoch Golf Club north of Inverness is a stand-out for its history and its challenge.
The Championship Course is a quintessential coastal “links” par-70 course that was extended from its original 9 holes to 18 in 1886 by the legendary Old Tom Morris (a.k.a. Thomas Mitchell Morris), who was one of the founding fathers of the sport.
Ever since, golf fans have made the respectful pilgrimage to the remote, but eminently rewarding, location of Royal Dornoch in the North Sea-swept Scottish Highlands. You can certainly look forward to a fine dram of whiskey or two after you play.
Bandon Trails, Bandon Dunes, Oregon
Again, the Pacific Northwest may not immediately spring to mind when you think about fantastic golf. But that just means that you probably haven’t yet had the opportunity to play the heralded Bandon Trails golf course at the extensive Bandon Dunes golf resort on Oregon’s rugged Southwestern coast.
Spiritually akin to classic Scottish links-style play, the flagship Bandon Trails track was added as the resort’s third course (there are currently a half-dozen courses), designed by golf architects Coore & Crenshaw (and by Crenshaw, we mean golf legend Ben Crenshaw) in 2005.
The course is located a bit more inland than some of the resort’s coastal tracks, but the pay-off of weaving your game between heavily forested areas and natural inland sand dunes more than makes up for any lack of direct seaside vistas.
The Green Monkey Golf Course, Barbados
The exquisite Green Monkey golf course in the Caribbean at the iconic Sandy Lane Barbados resort occupies a special place in the hearts of avid golfers, and not just for its cool name.
The par-72, Tom Fazio-designed course is the most desirable choice of the resort’s three golf options, offering a perfect combination of tropical seaside ease with some intimidating, rocky, rugged obstacles for unmatched risk/reward play.
The signature 16th hole is a demanding par-3 that requires you to tee off into a former limestone quarry to the heavily protected green. A large sand trap also guards the green with an elaborate green area inside in the shape of, you guessed it, the Bajan green monkey that the course is named after. Instagram moment, anyone?
To learn more about TAG Heuer and its golf bona fides, click HERE.