Terms of service

1. This agreement

GolfBook is made and run by WhiteHat Software Inc., based in British Columbia, Canada. These Terms are the agreement between you and us for using the GolfBook player app and this website.

By creating an account or using GolfBook, you're agreeing to them. If you don't agree, don't use GolfBook. If you deal with GolfBook through a golf facility's staff tools instead, that facility has its own separate agreement with us — these Terms cover you as a player.

Our privacy policy is part of this agreement, and explains what we do with your information.

2. Who can use GolfBook

• You have to be at least 13 years old.
• If you're 13 to 17, a parent or legal guardian has to approve your account before it will do anything. We email them a link; until they use it, the account can't chat, post, book, pay, or share location. A guardian can withdraw that approval at any time by emailing legal@golfbook.ca, and the account is then suspended.
• Under-18 accounts have some features restricted for safety — the details are in the privacy policy.
• One account per person. Accounts are for individual golfers, not for sharing, and not for bots.
• Give us accurate details, and keep them roughly up to date.

3. Your account

You sign in with a code sent to your email or phone, with an email address and password, or through Google, Apple, Microsoft or Facebook. Whichever you use, keep it secure — anything done from your account is treated as done by you. Tell us at legal@golfbook.ca if you think someone else is getting in.

You can close your account whenever you like. The deletion page explains how, and what happens to your data.

4. What you can't do

GolfBook has chat, groups, a feed and tournaments in it, which means it has other people in it. So:

• No harassment, hate speech, threats, or targeting people over who they are.
• No sexual content involving minors, ever. We report it.
• No impersonating other people, courses, or us.
• No posting other people's private information.
• No spam, no scraping, no bulk-harvesting other users' details, and no trying to break, overload or work around the app's limits.
• No abusing bookings or payments — fake bookings, someone else's card, gaming a course's no-show policy.
• Nothing illegal.

You can block or mute anyone in the app, which stops them contacting you. To report someone or something, email legal@golfbook.ca — there's no in-app report button yet. We read every report, and we may warn, restrict, suspend or remove accounts. We can't promise a particular outcome or a particular response time.

5. What you post

Your content is yours. Messages, posts, photos, scores — you keep everything you had before you posted it.

To actually run the service we need your permission to handle it: to store it, send it, show it to the people you posted it to, and make the technical versions that involves — resized copies, thumbnails, and the re-encoded version of an image we produce for safety when you upload it. That permission lasts as long as the content is on GolfBook, and it exists only so we can show your content to the people you meant it for. We don't licence it out, sell it, or use it to advertise.

You're responsible for what you post, and for having the right to post it — including photos with other people in them. We can remove content that breaks these Terms or the law.

Chat messages aren't end-to-end encrypted. The privacy policy explains what that means for who can read them.

6. Scores, handicaps and leaderboards

• Scores are typed in by players. GolfBook keeps score and shows a leaderboard; it doesn't watch you play, doesn't verify strokes, and isn't the arbiter of a rules dispute.
• Tournament organisers can correct scores and void contest claims within their own event.
• Any handicap shown is the number you or an organiser entered, used to work out net scoring. It is not an official handicap index from Golf Canada, the World Handicap System, or anyone else.
• An account marked as belonging to a professional player has been checked by us against that player's tour directory and their tour or agency. Don't claim to be a professional player you aren't — impersonation gets an account removed, and this is the version of it we take most seriously.
• Professional-tour scores, schedules and world rankings are gathered from public third-party sources, including ESPN and the official world ranking bodies. They're there for interest. We don't guarantee they're accurate, complete, or up to the second, we're not affiliated with any of those organisations or tours, and we can lose access to any of them at any time. If you're one of the players in that data, this page explains what we hold and how to have it removed or corrected.

7. Booking and paying

• Where a golf facility has published tee times on GolfBook, you can hold and book one, on your own or through a lobby with other players.
• The facility provides the golf, not us. Course conditions, service, staff conduct, pace of play, and what happens if a booking goes wrong on their side are theirs. Their own booking, cancellation and no-show rules apply, and you'll be shown them before you book.
• Where payment through GolfBook is available, it's handled by Stripe. We don't see or store your card number. Refunds follow the facility's policy for the booking.
• Where a course offers it, you can order food and drink through GolfBook while you're playing there. The facility prepares and delivers it, and their prices and policies apply.
• Prices, availability and fees are set by the facility unless we say otherwise.

8. Sharing your location

GolfBook can show the people in your booking lobby where you are on the course while you play. It's off unless you turn it on, it asks again every round, and you can stop at any time. Nothing about your position is stored for that feature. The privacy policy sets out exactly how it works, and what we've committed to for any future feature that would need to keep a rough position.

If your account belongs to a minor, this feature isn't available at all.

9. What we promise, and what we don't

GolfBook is provided as it is and as it's available. It's a new product built by a small team. Features will change, some will be removed, and there will be outages. We don't offer a service-level guarantee for players, and parts that depend on other companies — tour scores, map images, text messages, payments — can stop working for reasons outside our control.

We don't warrant that GolfBook will be uninterrupted, error-free, or fit for any particular purpose, to the extent the law lets us say so. Some consumer-protection laws give you rights that can't be excluded by an agreement like this one, and nothing here takes those away.

What we're not responsible for: indirect or consequential losses; lost profits, lost business, or lost data; anything that happens on a golf course or between you and another person you met through GolfBook; and anything a golf facility does or fails to do. Where we are responsible for something, our total liability to you is limited to what you paid us in the twelve months before the problem arose, or CAD $100 if you haven't paid us anything.

10. Suspending or ending an account

• You can leave whenever you want.
• We can suspend or close an account that breaks these Terms, that's being used for fraud or abuse, or where the law requires it. Where it's practical and appropriate, we'll tell you why.
• Some things survive the end of the agreement: the limits on our liability, and the fact that content you already shared with other people stays part of their copy of the conversation or the round.

11. Changes to these Terms

We'll update these Terms as GolfBook changes. If a change matters, we'll give you reasonable notice in the app or by email before it takes effect. If you keep using GolfBook after that, you're accepting the updated version.

12. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of British Columbia, Canada, and the federal laws of Canada that apply there. Disputes go to the courts of British Columbia. If you're a consumer somewhere with its own mandatory protections, this doesn't remove them.

13. Contact

Questions about these Terms: legal@golfbook.ca.