Get the S50.
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| Garmin Approach S50 | Garmin Approach S70 (47mm) | |
|---|---|---|
| Price (MSRP) | $399.99Lower price | $699.99 |
Get the S50.
Get the S50. At $399.99, it covers everything most golfers actually need — AMOLED display, 43,000 courses, AutoShot, PlaysLike distances, full health tracking — and the $300 you save buys a lot of green fees. The S70 makes sense if you want Virtual Caddie with wind-aware club recommendations or you're already paying for Garmin Golf membership and want to get the most out of it. For everyone else, the S50 is the play.
Both run on AMOLED touchscreens, pull from the same 43,000-course database, and offer AutoShot detection, PlaysLike distances, strokes gained, and full smartwatch features (heart rate, sleep tracking, Garmin Pay, music storage). Same water resistance (5 ATM), same lens (Gorilla Glass 3), same app ecosystem. The S70 isn't a different kind of watch — it's the same foundation with more on top.
The headline additions are Virtual Caddie, wind data, and a barometer-enhanced PlaysLike. Virtual Caddie pulls your swing history, shot dispersion, wind conditions, and elevation to suggest a club. The S50's PlaysLike adjusts for elevation but has no barometer — so it's working with GPS-derived elevation only, which is probably good enough for most courses, but probably less precise on elevation-heavy tracks.
Wind data is live on the S70. The S50 has none. If you play in coastal or mountain conditions where wind is a real factor, that gap matters. If you mostly play flat, calm-weather courses, it probably doesn't.
The S70 runs a 1.4-inch screen at 454 × 454 resolution. The S50 runs 1.2 inches at 390 × 390. Both look great. On a wrist, that difference is subtle — but it's there when you're trying to read a green map mid-round.
What you'll notice more is the weight. The S50 is 29 grams with the default nylon ComfortFit band. The S70 is 56 grams — nearly double. That's a meaningful swing-feel difference. After 18 holes, a 56g watch on your wrist has a presence; the S50 disappears.
Both watches lock green contours behind a Garmin Golf membership — $99.99/year or $9.99/month. This isn't a free-vs-paid split between the two models; it's the same paywall for both. The S70 does include green contours as a membership feature, same as the S50 — so this isn't a reason to go S70 over S50 unless you're already subscribing.
Over three years, that membership adds $300 to whichever watch you choose. Factor that in when you're looking at the $699.99 vs $399.99 sticker prices — the real gap is $300 either way if you subscribe, or nothing if you don't.
The S70 has 32GB of music storage versus the S50's 4GB. If you walk 18 listening to podcasts or playlists, you'll notice that. If you use Bluetooth headphones and stream, you won't. The S70 also adds Wi-Fi and a ceramic bezel versus the S50's aluminum — nicer to look at, but not a functional advantage on the course.
Get the S50 if:
Get the S70 if:
The S50 is the smarter buy for most golfers. It's not a stripped-down version of the S70 — it has AutoShot, PlaysLike, full health tracking, AMOLED, and 43,000 courses. What it doesn't have is Virtual Caddie, wind data, and a barometer-enhanced PlaysLike. If those three things reflect how you actually play and think about club selection, spend the extra $300. If they sound useful in theory but you'd rarely use them in practice, the S50 is genuinely everything you need. It's also 27 grams lighter, which you'll feel on every round.
Get the S50.