Check wind speed on your iPhone

High winds played havoc with the field in the third round of the Ballantine's Championship on Jeju Island in South Korea.

Check out the wind speed app for iPhoneChief referee John Paramor had his anemometer out to measure the wind speed but he could quite easily have pulled out an iPhone and used the new "Wind Meter" application, developed by a start-up group of young engineers in Silicon Valley.

This group of golf nuts came up with the concept of using the iPhone microphone for detecting wind speed about six months ago and began working with the necessary sound conversions, algorithms and programmers.

According to the people from Wind Meter APP: "It has taken a considerable amount of testing time and program up-dating for this device to give good approximate wind readings. We could not help but appreciate the idea of having a wind meter that gives good approximate readings and a phone all in one device. We believe that the wind meter is really a fun gadget, but also has many practical uses in many activities where wind is a factor.

"We confident that the Wind Meter APP will be found to be very useful in Golf during practice rounds or "*before*" stipulated rounds and tournaments. We are fairly confidant that the wind meter application at this point falls into the R & A category of other DMD's in rule 14.3  However, our application does provide quite good approximation feedback concerning present environmental wind conditions and a convenient phone/ meter combination while on the fairway or the green."

If you own an iPhone, you can download the application for 0.78 euro or .99 cents US.