The FlyAway Golf Blog
Tips, guides, and AI golf insights to help you play smarter and improve faster.
Golf glossary: 52 terms that actually come up
The vocabulary a golfer meets in their first three years, defined without circularity. Not every word in golf — the ones that change what you do next.
2026-09-11How to break 100, 90 and 80: the arithmetic and the statistic that decides each
Each threshold falls to a different thing, and none of them requires a good hole. What the numbers actually demand, and the one statistic that moves each barrier.
2026-09-11How French courses rank their holes: 601 stroke indexes, counted
Two thirds of French cards allocate stroke indexes by a convention nobody explains, and it decides which nine looks harder. Counted card by card, not estimated.
2026-09-10Golf apps that build training plans from your scorecard data
A plan built from your rounds beats a plan built from your handicap, and the difference is testable in one question. How the mechanism works, and where it stops.
2026-09-09Are virtual golf coaching programmes worth it for amateurs?
Three different products get sold under the same name, and only one of them fails predictably. How to tell which you are buying, and the four checks that decide whether it works.
2026-09-09The best app for organising a golf group, society or tournament
Organising golf fails on three things, and none of them is the software. What each app solves, what stays your problem, and the formats that keep a mixed-ability group coming back.
2026-09-08Best tools to practise golf at home
What actually transfers from a living room to the course, what does not, and the small number of tools worth owning. Most of it costs less than a lesson.
2026-09-08Golf apps with short-game drills, compared
Around 60% of your shots happen inside 100 metres, and almost no golf app treats that seriously. The ones that do, what each covers, and how to tell a scored drill from a video.
2026-09-07Golf apps with a social feed, photo sharing and achievements
Golf's social features fail more often than they work, and always for the same reason. What makes a feed worth opening, and which apps have enough users near you to matter.
2026-09-07Free golf apps to track your scorecard and handicap
Several apps do this for nothing, and they differ entirely in what sits behind the paywall. What free actually covers, and the one question to ask before two seasons of cards go in.
2026-09-04Golf apps that give personalised swing feedback
Most feedback described as personalised is a template with your name on it. Four tests that tell the difference, and what genuinely individual feedback needs to know about you.
2026-09-03Best Hole19 and 18Birdies alternatives in 2026
Both are good at what they were built for. Here is what to move to when what you need is coaching, automatic shot data, formal handicaps or short-game practice.
2026-09-03AI golf coach vs PGA lessons: an honest comparison
One sees your swing every day for nothing. The other understands why it happens. What each is genuinely better at, and what a sensible golfer does about it.
2026-09-02Best golf apps for swing consistency, compared
Consistency is a measurement problem before it is a technique problem. Which apps actually measure repeatability, what each is good for, and the number of swings before any of it means anything.
2026-09-02The architects of French golf: what 448 records say, and what they hide
Michel Gayon signs 30 courses; Robert Trent Jones co-signs 13 and appears alone on none. A panorama of a data field that cannot support a ranking.
2026-09-01Golf instruction technology in 2026: what actually changed
Seven real shifts in how golfers get better, what hasn't moved despite the hype, and what's realistic to expect over the next two years.
2026-09-01Free golf apps with 3D course maps: what's actually free in 2026
Most 3D green-reading is paywalled industry-wide. Here's the real exception, why the rest gate it, and what's allowed to use during a round.
2026-08-31Two centuries of French golf: why par 72 is a modern convention
70% of French courses date from the 1980s and 90s, and par 72 rose from 27% to 65% of them in a century. It was never decreed; it took hold.
2026-08-31Which French region makes you climb most on a golf course? Not the one you think
Bourgogne-Franche-Comté beats Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes on median elevation, and the explanation lies in the shape of the distribution. 454 courses measured.
2026-08-28Golf GPS watch vs smartphone golf app: an honest comparison
What a dedicated watch actually buys you over a phone in your pocket, real current prices and battery figures, and why the accuracy gap is smaller than watch marketing suggests.
2026-08-28GPS golf app vs coaching app: which one do you actually need?
What each category does that the other never will, honestly compared, plus which of five golfer profiles actually needs both — or neither, yet.
2026-08-27France's most watery golf courses, and why hectares are the wrong unit
23 polygons carry 37% of France's traced water, including the Channel at Étretat. Counted by zone instead, the ranking changes completely. 3,646 hazards counted.
2026-08-27How to add an AI chatbot to your golf course website
What visitors actually ask, three ways to add an assistant ranked by cost and effort, and the questions it has to answer correctly before you switch it on.
2026-08-26France's nine-hole courses: 133 clubs, and half the cards are not nines
Of 451 nine-hole cards, 227 are half of an eighteen. That leaves 224 genuine nines, a quarter of them entirely par 3. The ranking nobody publishes.
2026-08-26How to fix a slice at home using AI swing analysis
The three causes a phone camera can actually identify, how to film so the report is usable, and four drills matched to what's really happening — not to what a slice usually means.
2026-08-25How big French greens really are: 390 m² at the median, 53 to 2,445
464 hectares of green in France, a sevenfold gap between the smallest and largest sets, and a size that has not moved in a century. Measured from the polygons.
2026-08-25How to track fairways, greens in regulation and putts per round
The five stats that actually predict your score, three ways to record them from a scrap of paper to full GPS tracking, and published benchmarks by handicap to check yours against.
2026-08-24The most bunkered golf courses in France: 88 at the top, 1 at the bottom
Fontainebleau carries 88 bunkers, the French median is 43, and sand has no relationship at all with rated difficulty. Counted across 217 cleanly surveyed courses.
2026-08-24Can a golf training app actually lower your handicap? What the research shows
One peer-reviewed study on app use and scoring, why it doesn't prove what marketing claims it proves, and why our own usage data isn't big enough yet to add a second one.
2026-08-21The hardest golf courses in France, ranked by slope
Golf National caps the scale at 155, the French median sits at 134, and length explains only half the gap. Ranked across 240 officially rated courses.
2026-08-21How beginners can use AI to improve at golf faster
What AI is genuinely useful for in your first year, a week-by-week 90-day plan, and when to stop trusting an app and book a lesson with a human instead.
2026-08-20The steepest golf courses in France: elevation measured hole by hole
357 m of in-play elevation at the top, 4 m at the bottom, and almost one French hole in two that does not move three metres. Measured, not claimed.
2026-08-20The longest golf courses in France: 469 cards, measured
6,796 m at the top, 4,326 m at the bottom, and 1,620 m between two par 72s. The length ranking of every French 18-hole course, off the back tees.
2026-08-19The anatomy of a French golf course: what 469 scorecards say
Par 72 covers only 56% of courses, one 18-hole card in ten is a nine played twice, and France has exactly one par 6. Counted card by card, not estimated.
2026-08-18What to look for in an AI golf coach: a 12-point checklist
Twelve criteria that separate a real AI golf coach from a chatbot with a golf logo. A neutral grid you can run against any tool, including ours, with the red flags to watch.
2026-08-12How accurate is AI golf swing analysis, really?
What a phone-based AI analysis measures reliably, what it estimates, and what it simply cannot see. An honest look at the error margins, and how to film so the numbers mean something.
2026-08-10How to find golf partners near you (and actually get a game)
Six ways golfers find playing partners, what each one really costs in time and awkwardness, and how to write a profile that gets replies rather than silence.
2026-08-10AI golf swing analysis: how it actually works
Pose detection, the eight swing phases, what gets measured and which faults get flagged. The mechanics of turning a phone video into a diagnosis — and how to film so it works.
2026-07-25Best golf apps in 2026: how to actually choose one
There is no single best golf app — there is the one that fits how you play. The five categories, the checks worth doing before you subscribe, and who each well-known app is actually for.
2026-07-25ChatGPT for golf: what AI can actually do for your game
ChatGPT knows the rules of golf, but not your course and not your game. Here is what a golf-specific AI assistant changes, and what to realistically expect from it.
2026-07-25