A personal golfing assistant system includes a handheld device and a GPS receiver that enables the user to survey and/or electronically capture geophysical golf data. The system can be used during the course of play to mark a ball location automatically, determine the distance to golf course targets or objects, analyze golf related data and generate statistics. The system provides a graphical display of useful golf-related information and can send a set of parameters tailored for a specific course to a real time tunable GPS to adjust for optimal performance and can adjust measurements to compensate for environmental condition changes. There is also provided a method for collecting and uploading golf course geographic information to an internet accessible server, processing the uploaded data, distributing data upon an authorized user request and downloading the requested data to an electronic device.