Show HN: I mapped every US golf course – 16k+ courses, free, no signup

(golfcoursebrowser.com)

69 points | by rickmf 2 hours ago

15 comments

  • crossroadsguy 21 minutes ago
    I am not sure how it is in USA but in my country golf courses are abuse of public resources for (almost) private use. For a very few who can lobby enough for renewal of these leases and these are kept out of reach of the normal public, either by rule or by cost, sometimes both. Golf courses are lungs of many of the growing cities, across the world, but I do believe they should not be kept exclusive. Also, this comes directly from feudal/colonial times here. Those also require too much of other natural and public resources to be maintained.
    • rickmf 8 minutes ago
      US is a mixed bag. Where i am from, Michigan, we have over 600 courses and 87% of them are open to the public.
  • punnerud 1 hour ago
    Nice job! When I zoom in on Google earth you can easily see if it’s actually a golf course or not, would been interesting to use this to draw up the areas with polygons and some more details.

    Then you could start providing a lot more details about each one automatically.

    • rickmf 17 minutes ago
      yeah i am pulling from OSM. I can probably draw those polygons. It;s been an OK source for number of holes etc but I need to cross reference to get other detailed info
  • thomasswift 15 minutes ago
    This is badass. Thank you!

    Near my area, there is a driving range and a simulator place as pins. both nice but not courses. Do you want reports on that?

    • rickmf 13 minutes ago
      Yes. You can report any missing or bad info right in the course info drawer that pops up when selecting one. There is a button for sending corrections with a few fields but you can also just make a comment.
  • aren55555 10 minutes ago
    Would be sweet if it also had membership status (private/public/etc)
    • cortesoft 8 minutes ago
      If you expand the filters, you can see it allows you to select public or private.
    • rickmf 10 minutes ago
      it does! pins are different color and it should label them. Might be some inaccuracies, but its pretty close. report any if you see any wrong
  • totetsu 28 minutes ago
    This is fascinating not because I’m interested in visiting any of these. But to see the communities in Alaska with courses, or to look at the most concentrated places and wonder what so many people in Florida get out of having a fairway and one hole right in their backyard..
    • rickmf 19 minutes ago
      retirement communities in florida have a lot of these weird mini private courses.
  • cheeaun 35 minutes ago
    Polygon areas would be cool to see how big they are. I made this few years ago for Singapore https://observablehq.com/@cheeaun/golf-courses-in-singapore
    • NSPG911 19 minutes ago
      That seems slightly pointless no? I mean Singapore is small enough already, there probably is 10 courses maximum. The one I've seen is the Changi course, and I don't think it can compare to the average course size in the States
    • rickmf 23 minutes ago
      good idea!
  • postalrat 1 hour ago
    • fsckboy 19 minutes ago
      that's the University of Minnesota Les Bolstad golf course

      https://www.uofmgolf.com/teetime

      • rickmf 2 minutes ago
        Its actually present, but listed as closed (auto toggled off).

        the tee time link is dead and google reports as permanently closed. However if its open i'd love to know!

      • rickmf 17 minutes ago
        You can report these right in the site and they should get cleaned up in 24-48 hrs or so,
  • adm4 1 hour ago
    great! have you seen https://openskimap.org/ and https://openskistats.org/... maybe change name to open golf map?
    • rickmf 20 minutes ago
      Not a bad idea i have not heard of those
  • mercurywells 1 hour ago
    I was going to say you were missing this one but I'm not sure if it's still open after the county purchased it.

    https://www.pga.com/play/ny/rome/mohawk-glen-golf-course/033...

    Now add mini golf courses.

    • rickmf 12 minutes ago
      yeah mini golf would be a nice add. I'd like to get all practice facilities and indoor/ sim golf as well eventually.
  • proxy_skate 20 minutes ago
    so thats why lebron wanted to go to philadelphia or miami
  • ryan_lane 19 minutes ago
    It would be interesting to map this to parkinson's data.
  • prologic 1 hour ago
    Any plans to expand this to other parts of the world?
    • rickmf 22 minutes ago
      Yes. Canada and Mexico next. Then will move to EU Asia etc. Want to work out all the hiccups in US first
      • prologic 13 minutes ago
        How are you populating the dataset here? Anything we can to do help crowd source and contribute?
  • elpakal 1 hour ago
    clicked on a website link for a course near me and it took me to a weird site wopraja
    • rickmf 21 minutes ago
      probably and old site that now redirects.. you can report issues right on the site. community reports are going to be the most reliable for me over time.
  • verdverm 1 hour ago
    are we able to estimate water usage and other statistics from this data set?
    • bruce511 38 minutes ago
      The amount of water used is somewhat less important than what the source of the water is.

      And it's important to understand that "using water" isn't like "using coal". In other words, while coal can be burned once, water is in a cycle that means water can be "used" infinitly.

      But back to the source. A golf course near me takes effluent water (ie treated sewerage) destined for pumping out to sea. They spread it over a large piece of land. What is not consumed by plants, or evaporation, ends up in an underground aquifer.

      So it "uses" a lot of water. But it's not using tap water.

      Obviously this is not true for all courses. Hence the issue of "source", not "quantity" is material.