The short answer: I wanted a book I could take into a qualifier. StrackaBook is that book. PuttView is a clean page. Bushnell is a phone.
Verdict. If you want a printed yardage book you can actually use in a tournament, StrackaBook is the one to buy. PuttView makes a clean paper book at a few price points. Bushnell — the old Golf Logix book, now living under the Bushnell name — is mostly a phone app with green overlays. Those are useful products. They are not the same product as a rules-legal, laser-scanned green book.
I didn’t line these up because a launch video told me to. Golfers keep treating a phone app, a study book, and a tournament green book as the same product. They are not. Once you decide a slope-mapped book belongs in the bag, the next question is which one. Three names come up in the same breath: StrackaBook (and the StrackaLine app that sits next to it), PuttView, and Bushnell. They get compared because they all promise a better read. They do not cover the same ground.
We looked at them the way a competitive golfer would: green data, how you actually read a putt, whether the book is legal, what the app does when the book stays in the locker, and what you pay. This is not a catalog page. It is a buying decision.
What you are actually buying
A yardage book and a GPS app are different tools. A book is a paper document you can take into a stroke-play event. An app is a phone. Confusing the two is how golfers end up with a subscription and nothing they can use on Saturday morning of a qualifier.
- StrackaBook is the printed book — laser-scanned greens, multiple views, a 1- and 5-yard grid, hazards for orientation, and high-resolution aerials on many courses. It is built to stay inside USGA / R&A scaling rules.
- StrackaLine is the app and mapping layer behind that book. One annual subscription unlocks GPS and putt-reading on a very large course library. Useful Tuesday through Friday. Not a substitute for the book when the committee says paper only.
- PuttView (often searched as PuttViewbook) is a printed green book with slope arrows and aim points. It is good at teaching a green over time. It is, mostly, the paper product.
- Bushnell absorbed the old Golf Logix book. What you buy today is primarily a GPS app with green-reading add-ons. Convenient. Not a true tournament green book.
Green data, and how you read it
This is the whole comparison. Everything else is packaging.
StrackaBook starts from a laser scan of the putting surface. You get more than one drawing of the same green: a slope-percentage view, a heat map, and an elevation view. That matters when a single arrow on a page and the putt in front of you do not agree. You can check the read a second way before you pull the trigger. The greens are scaled to stay compliant, with a 1- and 5-yard grid so you can talk about a putt the way a caddie would — “two yards outside the fringe, slightly uphill” — instead of squinting at a cartoon.
PuttView books are genuinely clear. Slope arrows and aim points make them excellent study material, especially if you play the same course every week and want to learn the greens rather than rent a new read every Sunday. The limitation is the representation itself. You are usually looking at one drawing. If that drawing is busy, or if the green has been rolled and the feel does not match the page, you do not have a second view to reconcile it.
Bushnell’s contour data lives mainly in the app. Fine for a casual reference while you wait on a tee. It is not the same as committing a read from a scaled page under a tournament clock. Phones also have a habit of dying, getting wet, or being illegal when a local rule bans them.
If green reading is why you are spending the money, StrackaBook gives you the most to work with. That is the unglamorous reason it keeps showing up in college bags.
Aerials, which only one of them really has
StrackaBook is the only one in this group that regularly pairs classic hole drawings with high-resolution aerial photography of the course. PuttView and Bushnell do not match that.
For a course you have never seen, the overhead is not decoration. You see the real shape of a fairway, where a bunker actually sits relative to the landing zone, and how a green perches above a collection area. Then you flip to the line drawing when you are over the shot. It is a planning tool and a playing tool. The others ask you to choose one or the other — or neither.
Paper, app, or both
How you play during the week should decide the package, not a homepage headline.
- StrackaBook + StrackaLine: paper for the events that require it, plus the app when you are knocking it around or traveling. The book is the product you take to the first tee of a qualifier. The app is the product you use on a Tuesday member-guest when you do not want another paper book in the cargo pocket.
- PuttView: the printed book is the point. If paper is all you want, and you are shopping on price, this is the honest alternative.
- Bushnell: the app is the point. Buy it if you want phone GPS and do not need a rules-compliant book. Do not buy it expecting a tournament green book to show up in the mail.
Players who mix casual rounds and competitions are the ones who feel the gap. A PuttView book does not help you on a strange muni at dusk. A Bushnell app does not help you when the committee wants paper. The Stracka pair is the only setup in this group that covers both without a second vendor.
Price, without the brochure language
StrackaBook sits at the premium end of printed books — generally around $55 for a full yardage-and-green book, more if you personalize it. PuttView’s tiered menu (yardage-only, slopes, full green maps) can come in cheaper if you only need a simple book. Bushnell’s cost is a subscription.
If the assignment is “cheapest possible yardage-only pamphlet,” StrackaBook is not trying to win. You are paying for scan depth, legal scaling, aerials, and the option to put the same mapping under an app. For a golfer who plays one home course and never enters anything, PuttView can be enough. For a golfer who plays a lot of different courses, the annual StrackaLine subscription is where the math quietly flips — one login instead of a stack of one-off books you will not finish.
Head-to-head
| What matters | StrackaBook / StrackaLine | PuttView | Bushnell |
|---|---|---|---|
| Printed tournament book | Yes — StrackaBook is the book | Yes — the core product | No, not in any serious sense |
| Green source | Laser-scanned, multiple views | Detailed drawings, usually one view | App contours |
| Rules-legal scaling | Built for it | Paper book; check the edition | Phone, not a book |
| Aerial photography | Yes, on the book | No | No |
| GPS / putt app | StrackaLine, large course library | Not the point | This is the product |
| Best fit | Competitive players who want one ecosystem | Golfers learning a home course on a budget | Casual GPS on a phone |
| Typical cost | Premium printed book + optional annual app | Tiered, can be cheaper | Subscription |
Who should buy what
- You play qualifiers, college golf, or club championships and want the read to hold up: StrackaBook. The scan depth and legal page are the reason. Add StrackaLine if you also travel.
- You want a clean book to learn your home greens and you are watching the budget: PuttView is the fair look. It will not give you aerials or a worldwide app, and it should not pretend to.
- You mostly want numbers on a phone: Bushnell. Pair it with a laser if you care about a flag. Do not call it a yardage book.
The takeaway
All three will make a weekend round feel more organized. Only one of them is a complete yardage-book product. StrackaBook is the printed book you can take into an event. StrackaLine is the app that uses the same mapping when paper is optional. PuttView is a respectable paper book that stops at the page. Bushnell is a GPS app wearing the name of a book that used to be Golf Logix.
If the job is reading greens when it counts, StrackaBook wins. That is not because the other two are junk. It is because they are solving different, smaller problems.
Frequently asked questions
Is StrackaBook the same thing as StrackaLine?
No. StrackaBook is the printed yardage and green book. StrackaLine is the app and the mapping technology behind it. People use the names interchangeably online, which is how this comparison got messy. If you need paper for a tournament, you want the book.
Is PuttView cheaper, and is that enough?
Often, yes, especially if you skip the full green-map tier. Cheaper is enough if you play one course and want arrows on a page. It is not enough if you need a second view of the green, aerials, or an app that covers the next city.
What happened to the Golf Logix book?
It lives under Bushnell now. The consumer product you meet today is an app with green-reading features, not a dedicated tournament book. Treat it as GPS.
Can I use a phone app in a tournament?
Sometimes, under a local rule, and often not. Distance apps are a different question from green-reading graphics. If the committee wants a paper book, an app is not a workaround. That is the practical case for owning StrackaBook even if you like the StrackaLine app during the week.
Do college programs actually use these?
Printed green books are standard in serious amateur golf. StrackaBook is the one we keep seeing in that setting, which matches the product: scan-based, scaled, and built to sit next to a caddie notebook rather than a lock screen.