Privacy Policy
Effective: [date of the first App Store release]
SpotGolf is an iPhone and Apple Watch app that tracks your golf round: where you hit each shot, your strokes, and your putts. This policy says what the app collects, where it goes, and how to delete it.
SpotGolf has no accounts, no ads, no analytics, and no tracking. We do not sell or share your data with anyone.
What stays on your devices
Most of what SpotGolf records never leaves your iPhone and Apple Watch, unless you turn on iCloud Sync (below).
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| Location during a round | To mark where you hit each shot and which hole you are on |
| Wrist motion, from the watch | To detect swings and putts |
| Sound, from the watch’s microphone | To hear the ball being struck, to tell a putt from a practice stroke. The sound is checked on the watch as it is heard and is not saved |
| Your rounds, strokes, scores and club distances | To show your rounds and scorecards |
| The app’s log | To help fix problems. It stays on your devices unless you share it yourself |
| Developer Mode recordings | Developer Mode is a hidden setting for SpotGolf’s developers. With it on, the watch saves the motion and sound of each green, for its last 5 rounds. The recordings stay on the watch and are deleted with their round |
Health
SpotGolf runs a golf workout on your Apple Watch during a round, which keeps the app active. It saves the workout to the Health app and reads the active energy and walking distance of that workout. SpotGolf does not send Health data anywhere.
iCloud Sync
When iCloud Sync is on (Settings > iCloud Sync), your rounds, clubs and settings are saved in your own iCloud account, so they are the same on every iPhone you sign in to. This data is in your iCloud account’s private storage. We cannot see it. Turning iCloud Sync off keeps your data on your iPhone only.
Sharing pin locations
When Share Pins is on (Settings), the pin location you set on a hole is shared with other SpotGolf golfers on the same course that day. A shared pin holds the course, the hole, the pin’s location on the green, the date, and when it was set. It does not hold your name or anything else about you.
Putt Data Sharing
Putt Data Sharing is optional. It is off until you agree to it on the Putt Data Sharing screen.
When you agree and do a set of putting drills on your watch, SpotGolf shares that session with the SpotGolf developers, so we can make putt detection work for every golfer and every putter.
| Shared | Detail |
|---|---|
| Wrist motion during the drills | From the watch’s motion sensors |
| Sound during the drills | Recorded by the watch’s microphone for the whole session, including the pauses between drills. Speech nearby may be recorded |
| One location at the start of the session | Rounded to about 11 meters, to check the session was on a putting green |
| Your setup | Your hand, putter, grip, ball and handicap range, as you entered them |
| The session’s drills and taps | When each task started and when you tapped Done |
| Device details | The app version, the watch model and its watchOS version |
Each session carries a random ID made when you agree. It is not linked to your name, your Apple Account or your email.
Sessions are uploaded through Apple’s iCloud (CloudKit) to storage only the SpotGolf developers can read. We copy each session to our own computers to study it, and then delete it from iCloud.
We use the sessions only to improve SpotGolf’s putt detection. We do not sell or share them with anyone. SpotGolf is open source, so we may describe what we learn from them, but we do not publish the recordings.
Deleting what you shared
On the Putt Data Sharing screen, swipe a session to delete it, or tap Delete All My Data to delete every session. A deletion removes the session from your iPhone and from iCloud, and asks us to delete our copy. We delete our copy the next time we collect sessions. Delete All My Data also gives you a new random ID, so later sessions are not linked to earlier ones.
Course data
SpotGolf downloads golf course maps from SpotGolf’s open source course data on GitHub. The download does not include your location or anything about you. GitHub’s own privacy policy covers the request itself.
Children
SpotGolf is not meant for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from them.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version is posted here with a new effective date. If Putt Data Sharing starts collecting something new, the app asks for your consent again.
Contact
Questions about this policy: open an issue on the SpotGolf GitHub repository.