Help

Everyone who signs up is a Member, like a golf club: free scoring, yardages, stats, handicap, friends, bets and trips of up to four. Pro Members add game analysis, a weekly plan, Ask AI, club recommendations and green reading.

Regular is everyday golf: your stats and handicap, friends, and rounds you play. Tournaments & Trips is for organized events: teams, matches, a live leaderboard, the schedule and the money. Tap the green “Change” pill at the top of any screen to switch.

No. Tap Play a round now and your first round works without an account: yardages, scoring and shot tracking. At the end, become a Member (free, with your email) to keep the round, your stats and a Handicap Index. Friends, leaderboards and trips need membership.

Add your name and, if you know it, your Handicap Index on your player card. Everything else is optional: payment details for settling up, and shot tracking if you want club distances and strokes gained.

Settings → Highlights: everything the app does, with tap-to-learn walkthroughs of Regular play, a round, and Tournaments & Trips.

Play → Start a round. Search for the course, pick your tee, add who you’re playing with, choose a format and a bet if you like, then tap Tee off.

Up to four players, you included: friends from the app (anyone you’ve shared a trip or round with) or guests by name. For bigger groups, set up a trip or tournament in Tournaments & Trips, which handles several groups at once.

The hole map shows GPS distances to the front, middle and back of the green, and to the hazards. Tap anywhere on the map to see the distance to that spot. Distances come from your phone’s GPS and the course map, so treat them as a close guide.

Tap Enter score on the hole. You can also record putts and whether you hit the fairway; they power your stats. Anyone in your group can enter or correct scores for the whole group, and everyone’s phone updates live.

Keep scoring. Scores are saved on your phone and sync automatically when you’re back online.

Tap the ✕. Finish round locks the card and posts it to your handicap. Leave for now keeps it open to come back to from Play. A round nobody has scored yet is discarded instead of kept.

Turn it on in Settings, then mark where each shot is played from on the hole map. The app works out your drives, approaches and club distances, and strokes gained.

The same as a tournament round. Stroke Play, Stableford and Just for Fun work for any group. Singles is for two. Best Ball, Scramble, Alternate Shot, Pinehurst, Greensomes, Shamble and Two-Man Aggregate are two against two, so they need four players; you pick your partner.

Each format uses the USGA’s recommended allowance (for example 90% in Best Ball, 95% in Stroke Play), and strokes fall on the hardest holes. In Scramble and the other one-ball formats, the side gets a combined handicap.

No. When a side shares one score (Scramble, Alternate Shot, Pinehurst, Greensomes), it isn’t anyone’s own round, so it stays out of your handicap, stats and the friends leaderboards.

Yes, from Group & bets in the round, as long as it doesn’t mix shared-ball and own-ball scores once scores are in. To add or remove players, switch to Stroke Play, Stableford or Just for Fun first.

Nassau (with presses), Skins and Wolf, plus Vegas and Sixes for a group of four. Which ones are offered depends on the format, the same as in a tournament match. Dots (birdies, sandies, greenies, polies) can go on top of any of them.

When you start a round, in the Bet section. Or during the round: Group & bets → Set up a bet, where you’ll also find presses, Vegas partners, who’s Wolf each hole, and the running damage report.

No. Once a round is finished or its day has passed, its bet is locked so nobody can change it after the fact. A trip’s commissioner can still fix a mistake on an unlocked round.

No. It keeps score of who’s up and who’s down. You settle up between yourselves; the payment buttons just open Venmo, PayPal or Cash App with the amount filled in.

Using the World Handicap System’s method from the rounds you finish: it needs three scores to start, and nine-hole rounds count too. It’s a close estimate for play among friends, not an official USGA or GHIN handicap.

Your Handicap Index and where it’s heading, the five things costing you the most strokes compared with golfers at your handicap, your 9- and 18-hole scoring, and strokes gained when you track shots. All my stats has the full detail.

It needs tracked shots. Turn on shot tracking in Settings, then mark each shot on the hole map, including one on the green.

Any Member you’ve shared a trip or a round with, plus your season teammates and anyone you’re in a challenge with. Invite more from the Friends tab.

Every stat is an average or a rate, never a running total, so how often you play doesn’t matter. Switch between your last five rounds (Form) and the whole season. Each stat shows its top ten, and you’ll always see where you stand.

Ten stats the PGA Tour judges players by: scoring average (net), birdie average, bogey avoidance, bounce back, par 4 scoring, driving distance and accuracy, greens in regulation, scrambling and putting average. In each, the best player gets as many points as there are players and the last gets 1. A stat you don’t track doesn’t count against you.

Every trip you’ve been on carries on as a league for the season: the trip’s own rounds plus every round each of you plays afterward. Pick it at the top of Leaderboards.

Make a team with friends for the year (one team each per season). A team’s number in each stat is the average of its ranked players, so a small team can take on a big one.

Friends → Challenges → New challenge. Pick a stat duel (the best average over the dates, or just your next rounds) or a side bet on anything you agree on, who’s playing (1 on 1, picked sides, or your season team against another), how long, and a stake. It goes live once everyone accepts.

Stat duels keep score automatically from everyone’s rounds; when the dates end, anyone in it records the result. Side bets are settled by the players. Afterward you can mark the stake as paid.

Tournaments & Trips → Start a trip or tournament. You’re the commissioner: add players and teams, set up rounds with a course, format and tee times, and share the invite code, link or QR code.

Ask the commissioner for the code or link, then tap Join with a code or QR. An invite link opens the app straight into the trip.

You, anyone in your group for that round, and the commissioner.

The Money tab tracks shared expenses and IOUs, adds in winnings from bets and dots, and works out the fewest payments to settle up.

Trips and tournaments are free for up to four players, the commissioner included. For more, the commissioner pays a one-time setup fee that unlocks as many players, groups and rounds as the event needs. It covers one event: the trip’s dates (up to 7 days) plus a week to finish scores and settle up. You can change the dates until the trip starts. Next year’s trip needs a new fee; this year’s results stay. Trips started before the fee existed keep all their players for free.

Yes. When the commissioner unlocks the trip, they can split the fee with the group: it goes in the Money tab as an expense they paid, shared evenly by everyone on the trip, including anyone who joins later. You settle it like any other expense.

Add your Venmo, PayPal, Cash App or Zelle details on your player card (My details on a trip). When someone owes you, they get a button for each one you’ve added.

Zelle has no link that fills in a payment, so the app shows your Zelle email or phone with a Copy button to paste into a bank app.

Every Member gets scoring, GPS yardages, stats, a handicap, friends, leaderboards, challenges, bets and past seasons free. Pro Members also get My Game (a full analysis of where your strokes go, plus a new practice plan every week with drills and targets), Ask AI, club recommendations, and green reading.

Monthly or yearly, with a free trial; the App Store shows the price in your currency before you confirm. It renews automatically until you cancel.

In your iPhone’s Settings → your name → Subscriptions → Golfing With Buddies. Cancel at least 24 hours before it renews; you keep Pro until the end of the period you paid for.

Settings → Pro Membership → Restore purchases, signed in to the same Apple ID you paid with. Still stuck? Email support with the date you paid.

My Game reads your rounds (it needs 36 holes with putts and fairways recorded) and writes a plan for the week: up to three things to focus on with targets, two to four practice sessions with drills, and how to play your next round. Tick drills off as you go; a fresh plan comes every Monday, and you can update it once mid-week after new rounds.

It’s worked out from the U.S. Geological Survey’s public lidar terrain data, measured to about 10 cm and smoothed. It shows the green’s general slope, the way it falls, and its high and low points, not the exact break of a putt, speed or grain. Greens rebuilt since the survey can differ, and the outer edge is left out because collars and bunker banks spoil the reading. Some areas aren’t surveyed yet.

Your own average distance with each club from shots you’ve tracked, matched to the yardage to your target or the green. Turn on shot tracking in Settings and track a few rounds to get them.

Match and round results, scores posted and tee-time reminders on trips; challenges from friends and how they end; and when a friend adds you to their round or enters your score, with what it meant for the bet.

Settings → Notifications, where each kind has its own switch. To stop them all, turn notifications off for the app in your iPhone’s Settings.

Check they’re allowed for the app in your iPhone’s Settings, and that the kind you want is on in the app’s Settings. Notifications come from other people’s activity, never your own.

Trip members see the trip; your group sees your round; friends see your finished rounds and the stats from them. Your phone number and payment details are shared only with people on your trips and rounds. The Privacy Policy has the details.

Improvements download in the background and apply the next time you open the app. Settings → App updates shows what you’re running and lets you check now.

Settings → Delete account. It takes effect immediately. Scores in trips and rounds shared with others stay under “Former member” so the group’s results still add up.

Email support@golfingwithbuddies.com, or use Settings → Contact support. We reply within two business days.