Bushnell Golf Tour V5 Shift Rangefinder Review - A Worthy Upgrade to the V Series Legacy

I've taken the new Bushnell Golf Tour V5 Shift rangefinder out for testing a handful of times now.  Enough to get a good idea of what it can do and start writing my review.  Yesterday however, I was playing with a good friend and of course he was asking me questions about it.  So I decided to just let him use mine, it would be interesting what he thinks.  I had no idea it would become the intro for this review.

He was impressed, which didn't surprise me.  What did surprise me was just how impressed he was.  A few hours later I had a huge grin on my face when he texted me a pic of his new Tour V5 Shift.  He actually went out and bought his own after our round, I kid you not.

If you've never used a Bushnell rangefinder before and wonder what all the fuss is about?  Well that pretty much sums it up.  The Tour V5 Shift rangefinder does everything exceptionally well.

With a range of 1,300 yards, 6X zoom, flag targeting up to 400-plus yards, and accuracy to one yard, you're never guessing what club to pull no matter where you are on the course.  And you're getting results incredibly fast.  The time between pressing the button and seeing the yardage is quick as a wink immediate.

When you're shooting at flags the Tour V5 Shift gives you a double confirmation you're locked on to your target and not something beyond or behind it.  A visual red circle appears inside the display, along with an accompanying soft vibration (this is Bushnell's JOLT technology) for complete and utter confidence in your yardage.

Tour V5 Shift also dials you in to more difficult targets easily and quickly.  Yardages to bunker lips, water hazards, even fairway undulations and edges of the green come up rapidly with no delay.

Bushnell uses a new algorithm in the V5 Shift to adjust automatically for targets at different elevations.  I'm not sure what exactly the new algorithm entails, but can tell you it's as accurate as it gets for slope technology in any rangefinder.

I'm very familiar with Manakiki Golf Course (in Cleveland, Ohio) where valleys, peaks, and slopes are the name of the game.  And the Tour V5 Shift hasn't let me down a single time accounting for different trajectories and angles.

Slope technology isn't legal in tournament play, but Bushnell makes it very easy and secure to toggle between slope and non-slope functionality just by sliding the silver B logo button left or right.  There's no need to go into any settings.  When black shows slope is off, and when red shows slope is on.  Simple stuff.

The construction and feel of the Tour V5 Shift is also one of the best of any rangefinder I've used.  In fact, this is a rangefinder I actually wouldn't be concerned about falling off my cart or rattling around the ground.  The casing is a strong, quality material, and yet it's still relatively lightweight.  Meanwhile ridges on the top and bottom make it both comfortable to hold and also give you extra traction or grip, which is especially great on wet or humid days.

Bushnell has also introduced a new BITE technology into the Tour V5 Shift.  It's a magnet with seven pounds of pulling force, and it's very strong.  I first stuck this rangefinder to my refrigerator and it kind of shocked me how much it pulled my arm.

On the course I tested the magnet by driving downhill on one of the most severe slopes at Manakiki, purposefully trying to hit as many bumps and swales with the golf cart as I could.  And the Tour V5 Shift didn't budge a lick from the cart frame.  It's not quite Jesse Pinkman "Yeah, B----! Magnets!" from Breaking Bad, but it's still pretty impressive.

So @BushnellGolf says Bite tech in their new Tour V5 Shift has 7 pounds of (magnetic) pulling force.

I put it to a different test. 😁 20 mph, downhill, bumpy terrain, with no regard for human life!

And yeah, V5 Shift still sticking to golf cart and hasn’t freaking budged. 💯👍 pic.twitter.com/5V5xlbmasX

— Pete Pappas (@PGAPappas) June 10, 2021

And finally, there's the Tour V5 Shift optics.  I normally would talk about optics earlier in a rangefinder view, as I believe (along with speed and targeting ability) that's what really separates the best from the rest.  But in this case I'm saving the best for last.

Quality optics have always been a strong feature in Bushnell rangefinders, and the Tour V5 Shift makes the most significant improvement over the V4 in this area.

Colors are more brilliant, definition and contrast unequivocally sharper, and even lighting and brightness are better with the Tour V5 Shift.  Most impressive was playing holes into the sun.  My view didn't haze or wash nearly like I would have expected.  While not quite the same as having the sun to my back, the clarity was nevertheless incredibly impressive.

The new Bushnell Tour V5 Shift doesn't reinvent the wheel for rangefinders.  It does however improve on the phenomenal V series legacy with consequential tweaks to accuracy, speed, targeting, and optics that keep this model cutting edge and arguably the best rangefinder in the game.