Yards vs DECADE

The short answer

DECADE and Yards solve different halves of the same problem. DECADE is Scott Fawcett's course-management system: a taught framework for picking targets, built on tour shot-pattern and scoring data. It is the closest thing to Yards in intent, and the comparison is about form rather than philosophy. DECADE costs $199 a year for Foundations, $325 a year for Elite, $89 for six months of Breaking 90. Yards is $14.99 once per course or $49.99/yr for every mapped course.

Where DECADE is the better buy

• It is portable. DECADE is a method you carry, so it works on a course nobody has mapped and on a hole you have never seen. Yards needs the course to have been mapped first.
• It is taught, with a curriculum, a coaching community and a track record in college and elite amateur golf. If you want to be coached through the reasoning by someone, that is what you are buying.

Where Yards is the better buy

• It puts your dispersion on the actual hole. Yards takes your handicap and your own carry distances, builds your shot pattern from them, and lays it over the real mapped fairway, bunkers, water, trees and green of the hole you are about to play.
• It scores every aim point, not just the intended shot. For each candidate target the engine simulates the full spread of outcomes from that aim point and prices them: how often you finish in the fairway, the rough, the sand, the water, and what each of those costs in strokes. The recommendation is the aim point with the best average, which is a different and more specific answer than a target zone applied by eye.
• It shows its working. The outcome breakdown and the expected strokes per club are on the screen, so you can see why one club beat another. Used over a few rounds that teaches the same instincts, from your own numbers on your own courses.

Side by side

What you are comparing	DECADE	Yards
What you get	A taught system plus an app to apply it	A per-hole answer computed for your bag
Price	$199-$325 a year	$49.99/yr, or $14.99 once per course
Works on an unmapped course	Yes, you carry the method with you	No, the course has to be mapped
Uses your own club distances	You supply them to the framework	Yes, and it simulates them
Effort before it helps	You learn the system first	None, though the reasoning is shown
How the target is chosen	A framework you apply to the hole	Every candidate aim point simulated and scored
Course geometry	The hole as you read it	The mapped fairway, bunkers, water, trees and green

The verdict

Both will teach you to think your way round a golf course. DECADE teaches it as a method you can carry anywhere, including courses nobody has mapped, and it is the better buy if being coached through the reasoning is what you want. Yards teaches it the other way round, by showing you the answer and the numbers behind it on the specific hole you are playing: your dispersion on the real hole, every aim point simulated, and the cost of each miss priced in strokes. If you want a target zone you apply by eye, DECADE. If you want the aim point calculated for your bag on that hole, this one, at a quarter of the price.

What Yards does not do

It does not track your shots automatically, read greens, give you live distances on the course, analyse your swing, or work on a course nobody has mapped. It runs the strategy for a mapped hole against your handicap and your clubs, before you play. That is the whole product.

Other comparisons

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DECADE pricing and features were read from their own page on 4 September 2026 and are quoted as published. Prices change; check theirs before deciding. If anything here is wrong or out of date, email support@yardsgolfbook.com and it will be corrected.