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The Loop

Here are the endless ways the new Google app can help you with golf

November 12, 2014

Google has a new version of its search app, and its capabilities go well beyond answering bet-settling questions like, "What's the capital of North Dakota?"

Most impressive is the enhancement of Google's voice search, which means you can mumble some semi-coherent query into your phone while driving, and it will come back with a worthwhile answer. This is true for a lot of things -- movie times, for instance, or stocks -- but we were most interested in how it applies to golf.

So using only voice recognition, we gave it a whirl.

First, we started with the weather, since we needed to know if it was at all playable this week.

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OK, not great, but we're a hardy bunch, so we'll give it a go. Then we needed to nail down where.

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And how to get there.

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Perfect. Now, we needed some inspiration.

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Very cool, but that's not really my reality. This is.

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Or this.

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__And when things get a little sideways, I sometimes need help with the math.

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And yes, I'll admit, I need better ways to deal with my frustration.

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Eventually I realize I just need to relax.__


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