The short answer: EZLocator is the familiar pin list. StrackaHoLo is the better tournament sheet — the hole sits on a real green, not a cartoon.
Verdict. EZLocator is the familiar hole-location sheet: simple, cheap to run, already in a lot of pro shops. StrackaHoLo is the better tournament tool because the pin sits on a real green, not a generic kidney shape. If the sheet is only a courtesy for members, EZLocator is fine. If the sheet is part of how you set and play a competition, StrackaHoLo is the one that holds up.
I compared them as working documents, not software demos. Hole-location sheets are unglamorous on purpose. A superintendent or tournament committee picks a pin, someone prints a page, and players glance at it on the first tee. The category has been dominated for years by EZLocator, a straightforward pin-sheet system a lot of clubs already know how to run. StrackaHoLo is the newer sheet built on the same scanned greens that feed a serious yardage book.
We compared them as working documents — not as software demos. Can a committee set a fair pin? Can a player start on the right line? Can you print the thing at 6:40 a.m. without a science project?
What a hole-location sheet is supposed to do
A good sheet answers three questions before anyone hits a wedge:
- Where is the hole on this green — depth, side, and how tight to the edge?
- What is the green actually doing around that hole?
- Is this location fair for the field you are about to send out?
Most sheets only answer the first one, and they answer it on a cartoon. That is why two players can look at the same page and still have no idea whether the putt is uphill, across a ridge, or dead.
EZLocator: the incumbent, and why clubs keep it
EZLocator’s advantage is social, not cartographic. Staff already know the workflow. You pick a location, you print a familiar layout, you tape it to the starter window. Members recognize the page. Committees do not have to learn a new file format the week of the member-guest.
The sheet itself is typically a simplified green outline with a pin and a number — depth from the front, maybe a left/right hint. That is enough for “front-left, six paces.” It is not enough for “front-left, six paces, just over a ridge that feeds everything toward the collection area.”
There is also a quiet setup problem. If the outline is generic, a committee can park a hole in a spot that looks centered on the page and plays as a sucker pin in real life. EZLocator did not create unfair pins. It just does not do much to stop them.
None of that makes EZLocator a bad product. It makes it a pin list with a drawing. Plenty of Tuesday games need exactly that.
StrackaHoLo: the pin on a real green
StrackaHoLo starts from the opposite assumption: the hole location is only useful if it is plotted on the same surface the players will putt on. The greens are the laser-scanned maps, not a house outline. Slope and elevation are visible. A pin that looks “middle” on a cartoon can show up as middle-of-a-tier, or a pace from a false front, once it is sitting on the real contour.
That changes two jobs.
For the person setting the course. You can see when a Sunday pin is a good test and when it is a corner that will three-putt a flight of 12-handicaps for no reason. You can move a location two yards and watch it come off a ridge. Setup stops being a guess against a clip-art green.
For the player. The sheet starts to do some of the work a caddie notebook does. You still have to read the putt. You are no longer starting from a blank kidney and a number. Approach shots get better too — you can see whether “back right” is a safe shelf or a pin you should miss long-left of.
The honest catch: StrackaHoLo is more product than a lot of clubs think they need. If nobody on staff wants to look at a contour, the extra information is wasted paper. The clubs that get value from it are the ones already thinking about hole locations as part of the competition, not as a photocopy chore.
Daily production and the 6:40 a.m. test
Tournament weeks die in the details. Whoever is printing sheets cannot sit through a training video while the first group is on the range.
EZLocator wins on familiarity. If your staff already runs it, switching costs are real. A new system that is “better” on a slide deck and slower on Monday morning will lose.
StrackaHoLo is built for that same print-and-go loop — pick the locations, generate the sheet, hand it to the starter — but the output is a mapped green rather than a diagram. Digital distribution is there if you want players to see the sheet on a phone before they leave the parking lot. Paper still matters. A lot of events still want a physical page on the first tee, and both products can do that. The difference is what is on the page.
If your club has never used either system, the learning curve is not the decider. The decider is whether you want the sheet to show the green or just the pin.
Head-to-head
| StrackaHoLo | EZLocator | |
|---|---|---|
| What the sheet shows | Hole on a laser-scanned green, with contour context | Pin on a simplified outline, depth / side |
| Help for setup | Strong — you can see unfair or tucked locations before you cut them | Limited — the page does not show how the green plays |
| Help for players | A real starting read, plus a smarter miss | A location number, then you are on your own |
| Club familiarity | Newer | Incumbent — many shops already know it |
| Daily print workflow | Built for tournament mornings | Built for tournament mornings |
| Best use | Competitions, college events, clubs that care about setup | Casual pin sheets and shops that want zero change |
Where EZLocator still wins
Credit where it is due. If the assignment is “get a pin sheet on the board by 7 a.m. and do not train anyone,” EZLocator is the path of least resistance. It is also enough for a weekday game when nobody is keeping a stroke-play total that matters. We would rather say that plainly than pretend every club needs a scanned green to write “back left, 18 paces.”
The miss is treating that as the ceiling for tournament golf. A hole-location sheet is one of the few pieces of paper the entire field shares. If you are going to print it, it might as well tell the truth about the green.
The takeaway
EZLocator remains a reasonable hole-location sheet for clubs that want a familiar pin list. StrackaHoLo is the better tournament hole-location tool because it puts the cup on a mapped green, which makes setup fairer and the player’s first look more honest. That is the whole argument. The rest is whether your event is serious enough to care.
Frequently asked questions
Is StrackaHoLo just a yardage book with a pin drawn on it?
No. A yardage book is a player’s document for the round. A hole-location sheet is the official (or semi-official) record of where the holes are today. StrackaHoLo uses the same family of scanned greens, but the job is daily locations for a committee and a field, not a bound book you keep all season.
Can players use these sheets in competition?
Hole-location sheets are standard in amateur and college events. Whether a particular graphic is allowed is a committee decision. A sheet that shows the green is still a location sheet, not a green-reading book, but you should confirm local rules if your event is picky about extra publications.
Does EZLocator have more clubs using it?
Yes, as an installed habit. That is not the same as being the better sheet. Incumbents win on inertia. They do not automatically win on information.
What should a small club do?
If you cut one set of pins a week and nobody asks for a sheet, stay put. If you run a club championship, a qualifier, or a college dual, the sheet is part of the test. That is the case for StrackaHoLo.
Will members notice the difference?
The ones who three-putt from the wrong side of a ridge will. The sheet will not hole the putt. It will stop the field from treating every pin as a flat dartboard.