HERE’S a conversation topic for you and your golfing buddies as you kick back at the 19th hole on a summer’s evening and look back over your day on the course: all the apps that can help with your golfing game.

Of the many golf-related apps, some are intended to improve your technique and mastery of the sport, while others are aimed at increasing a golfer’s knowledge of the rules. Still other apps will teach you tricks about your favorite golf course. For all the rules of the game, people can go straight to the source — the R&A, one of golf’s governing bodies — with the official Rules of Golf app for iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7. The free app is simple, even austere in design, with muted colors, simple text and a plain graphical interface.

The first page is a guide to the most common issues and questions that may arise during a round of golf, telling you what to do, for example, if the ball is accidentally moved during play. There is also a section on etiquette, as well as one on the main rules. Selecting a rule from the list shows you more detail, and each one has clearly written text, plus videos and diagrams where necessary. To help memorize the rules, take the quiz with multiple choice answers in the app.

Golf GPS & Scorecard from Swing by Swing is one of the most popular golfing apps. As its name suggests, the app has two main features.

First, it uses your phone’s GPS to track your path around a golf course. That helps to see precisely where people are on the course during play, how far away from the green they are, where obstacles like sand traps are situated, what local wind forecasts are, and so on. Second, the app acts as a digital scorecard for a player and three partners so they can keep track of how well they are playing, or how they are improving over time at a particular course.

Golf GPS also offers tools to analyze your game after playing. Because of the tracking feature, you can see where your shots went and gain a better understanding of the course. You can also see how far each shot went, and even log shot distances for each club in your bag so you understand your own clubs and style better. While you’re playing, you can view a satellite photo of the course, zoom in to see the green and learn the distance to the front, middle and back of the green.

While basic tracking and scorekeeping features are free when you download the app, you have to pay $1 a round or $15 annually to get access to real-time wind data, club distance tracking and other advanced features. Golf GPS is available for iOS and Android. If you have a Pebble, Samsung Gear or Fit smartwatch, the app can send useful information, like distance to the next hole, right to your wrist.

Another golf app, VPAR, works like its rivals but has a tournament feature that lets you set up and score, in real time, an online tournament that you and your friends play together. There’s a GPS planner that shows your position on the course, the layout of each hole and the distance to the green, including the all-important front, middle and back data.

There’s a social media aspect so you can share progress as you play, and you can send messages to friends or fellow tournament players inside the app. Performance analytics and real-time information about each course, such as weather and reviews, are also available.

VPAR is good, and it covers over 30,000 courses worldwide. It is available only for iOS devices and costs $9 annually after the first 14 days of use.

For a truly high-tech golfing app, check out Hole19, which is free on iOS and Android. This app has many features to rival the others mentioned here, such as GPS tracking, hole route planning, distance data for more than 34,000 courses, detailed analytics on your performance and a scorecard.

It also has great integration with Android Wear and Apple Watch smartwatches, showing relevant information about the hole you are playing on your wrist. You can update how many strokes you have played on each hole via the watch app without having to get your phone out of your pocket. Fore!

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MSTY is a new messaging app with a quirky twist: Its messages center on a short clip from one of thousands of well-known songs. You can annotate your music message with images, text or emojis, perhaps picking a song that fits your mood and your location. The app is free on Android and iOS (including Apple Watch integration).