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Tracker for golf bag, clubs and changing-room kit

When it goes wrongPublished 4 min read
A golf bag standing on wet grass beside a buggy at the edge of a fairway on an overcast morning

A tracker for golf bag duty solves a smaller and more specific problem than most people assume. Clubs are rarely stolen off a fairway. They go missing in the gaps: the buggy somebody else drove back, the changing room where four identical black bags are propped against a bench, the boot of a car at an away course, and the airline hold on the way to somewhere warmer. Those gaps are exactly where a tag does its best work, and this is how to set one up for them.

The four places kit actually disappears

The clubhouse. Bags get moved by staff, by members and by whoever is tidying up. Nine times in ten the bag is forty metres away in a different rack, and the whole problem is that you cannot see it from where you are standing.

The buggy. Shared buggies get returned by whoever finishes first. A rangefinder, a jumper or a wedge left in the tray goes with them.

The car park and the drive home. Away days, society outings and a boot opened in the dark at a service station. This is where the theft risk is, such as it is, and it is opportunistic rather than targeted.

The airport. Golf travel bags are oversized items, so they are handled separately from the main belt at most airports and come out of a different door. They go astray at a noticeably higher rate than an ordinary suitcase for exactly that reason.

Sports kit follows the same pattern. Cricket bags, hockey sticks, kit bags at a five-a-side centre, wetsuits in a surf club car park, all of them are put down among identical things by tired people.

What a tracker for golf bag use has to survive

The conditions are harsher than the marketing usually admits.

  • Rain, constantly. A bag stands on wet grass for four hours at a time. IP67 is the sensible minimum, and it should be a real rating rather than "water resistant".
  • Vibration and knocks. A buggy tray on a cart path is not a gentle environment.
  • Cold. Coin cells lose some capacity in a British February. It is worth checking the battery reading in the app before a winter league rather than after.
  • Noise. A clubhouse is loud. Whatever finds your bag in a rack has to be heard over it, which means a speaker in the 80–100 dB range rather than a polite chirp.
  • Being left alone. A tag you have to charge is a tag that is flat by round three. A coin cell running for a couple of years is the only realistic option.

Where to put it

  1. A zipped valuables pocket is the easy answer and the best one for everyday loss. Accessible, dry, and near the top of the bag so Bluetooth is not fighting through fourteen clubs.
  2. The ball pocket, in a small pouch, if the valuables pocket is already full of everything else.
  3. Inside the hood or rain cover's seam, for anyone worried about theft rather than loss. Harder to find, harder to reach.
  4. On the strap ring with a key ring if you would rather see it. Fine for a bag that lives at a club, less clever for one going through an airport.
  5. In the travel cover as well, separately, if you fly with clubs. The cover and the bag do not always end up in the same place.

For kit bags, tag the bag rather than an individual item, and name it something the club steward could read out. "Dave's cricket bag, blue" rather than "Bag".

What it will not do

It will not track a club. Individual irons are too small, too metal and too numerous, and a tag glued to a shaft is a tag that comes off.

It will not give you a live trail across the course. Positions come from passing Apple devices, so on a busy Saturday the map is fresh and on a quiet Tuesday morning at a rural course it may be an hour old. Read the timestamp, always.

It will not point an arrow. There is no Ultra Wideband Precision Finding at this end of the market, so the map narrows it to the building and the sound finishes the job.

And if a bag genuinely is stolen and shows up at an address, that is a matter for the police and your insurer's crime reference number, not for a personal visit.

How the Locata Tag handles a Saturday medal

The Locata Tag is IP67 rated, which is the specification that matters most for kit that spends its life outdoors in this country, and it is 9 mm thick and around ten grams, so it disappears into a valuables pocket without adding anything you would feel on your shoulder. Play Sound gets 80–100 dB out of it from as far as 60 m, which is what actually separates your bag from the four next to it in a rack.

Turn on Notify When Left Behind and it will tell you if the bag and the buggy part company, or if you drive off from an away course without loading it. MFi certification means it joins the Find My network properly, listed under Items beside the rest of your Apple things, nothing extra to install, nothing to renew, and no account to create standing in a car park. Location data is encrypted end to end. iPhone and iPad only, iOS 14.5 or later; there is no Android version.

The CR2032 inside lasts up to two years and takes ten seconds to change. Boxes contain two tags and two key rings, which is the golf bag and the travel cover, or one bag each for a regular fourball partner. See what a box costs.

Words by Find My Tracker Updated

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