The rapidly expanding smartwatch market has brought with it a variety of sports-centric functions and designs. While many of these functions – heart rate tracking, step counting, and calorie tracking, for example – can be useful for a broad spectrum of activities, brands have also undergone significant efforts developing smartwatch suites tailored to individual sports. Golf is one of the most heavily represented sports in the smartwatch field, and TAG Heuer has led the charge on golfer’s smartwatches since 2018 with the introduction of the original Connected Golf Edition. With the launch of the updated Connected Calibre E4 in February 2022, a new generation of golf-centric Connected models seemed inevitable, and as spring enters full bloom and golf season begins again, the brand has delivered with a sleeker, more capable golf-inspired design. The new TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 – Golf Edition offers a more streamlined, advanced package than its predecessors, providing both added smartwatch functionality and cleverly integrated physical touches designed with the golf course in mind.

Like the standard Connected Calibre E4, the TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 – Golf Edition’s 45mm matte black DLC coated titanium case takes on a softer, more curvaceous form compared to its predecessor. The 18-hole fixed ceramic bezel is slimmer and features simpler geometry than the outgoing Connected Golf Edition model, while both the case sides and the lugs are more svelte, with flowing lines and markedly narrower chamfers in images. The pushers at 2 0’clock and 4 o’clock echo this new philosophy, eschewing the older model’s sharply faceted wedgelike forms in favor of a slimmer, more rounded shape that reinterprets the original engraved green accent stripe as a wider tapering recessed green segment. Like the standard Connected Calibre E4, many of these new case design concepts are intended to visually compact the watch on the wrist, especially its subtle case side undercut. Around back, the Connected Calibre E4 – Golf Edition includes a robust modern caseback sensor suite, including a heart rate sensor, a compass, a gyroscope, an accelerometer, a barometer, a microphone, and an NFC chip for easy integration with touchless pay systems. TAG Heuer rates the Connected Calibre E4 – Golf Edition for a reasonable 50 meters of water resistance.

The TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 – Golf Edition’s OLED touchscreen dial provides improved brightness and contrast over the previous Golf Edition model, which should make for easier viewing in the direct daylight conditions of a golf course. The line’s suite of golf-centric dial displays has been expanded and refined here as well, with a new wider perspective for the 2D map dial that gives a real-time perspective of over 40,000 golf courses around the world. This 2D map now also indicates the current hole number, distance to the hole, the currently recommended club, and scoring information in a clean, easily legible package. Each of the golfing-themed dial displays also works in conjunction with the 18-hole bezel to give at-a-glance color-coded data on a golfer’s performance across each hole of a course. The new Calibre E4 – Golf Edition is also revised for efficiency and ease of use, with more intuitive menu interfaces and a focus on automation. For example, the shot tracking system now begins automatically once the first swing is detected in the tee area, meaning golfers no longer have to pause to manually track their drives on the wrist. This works in conjunction with other golfing-focused features such as the Driving Range feature to deliver a tracking map for each hole of a course that shows where previous shots have landed. The automated data gathering also dovetails with the club performance tracking suite, which accumulates information on a player’s clubs over time to deliver tailored club recommendations for any situation based on the player’s past performance. At the end of a round, golfers can review their overall performance and save 3D rendered video clips of their best shots with TAG Heuer’s iOS companion app. Outside of pure golfing telemetry, the Connected Calibre E4 – Golf Edition offers exclusive green-accented reworks of several popular Connected dial options, along with a handful of unique all-new layouts. The simply-named Golf dial is the standout of these new options, with a clean three-hand Arabic numeral layout above a golf ball texture dial surface. The Connected Calibre E4 – Golf Edition also offers the standard Calibre E4’s full standard smartwatch functionality, along with a chronograph, countdown timer, alarms, and additional sports tracking suites tailored to running, cycling, swimming, and general fitness.

The TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 – Golf Edition also boasts several hardware improvements over its predecessor, and shares its internals with the standard Calibre E4 model. The heart of this model is the robust Qualcomm Snapdragon 4100+ smartwatch processor, which both offers greater processing speeds than the previous Snapdragon 3100 and adds an extra 30 percent to its overall battery life. This allows the Connected Calibre E4 – Golf Edition to run for a full 24 hours on a 90-minute full charge, even after using five hours of the power-hungry golf tracking apps. Thanks to Bluetooth 5.0 integration, data transfer to and from the Connected Calibre E4 – Golf Edition should happen at twice the speed of previous Golf Edition models.

Although the TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 – Golf Edition also includes a low-profile strap in perforated black rubber, the high-contrast white dimpled rubber strap gives this design its last unique golf-centric amenity. Beyond the golf ball-esque colorway and texture with rich green contrast stitching, the strap’s DLC coated titanium deployant clasp gives golfers another conversation piece while on the course. This clasp includes an integrated magnetized ball marker emblazoned with the TAG Heuer shield emblem, which can be easily removed from the clasp to replace a player’s ball on the green before being easily reintegrated into the clasp with a single touch.

With a more streamlined look, improved hardware, more intuitive golf-centric tools, and clever conversation-starting elements, the TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 – Golf Edition is a stylish and capable smartwatch companion both on and off the golf course. The TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 – Golf Edition is available now through authorized dealers. MSRP for the TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 – Golf Edition stands at $2,650 as of press time. For more details, please visit the brand’s website.