In the USA they are overwhelmingly public and are desperate for customers.

The handful of private ones near me are also desperate for new members, and several country clubs have ended up closing. Considering some of the golf courses that have closed around me ended up being converted into Amazon distribution facilities, I am not terribly excited about the idea of more golf courses closing.

Malcolm Gladwell did a great podcast on golf courses in prime urban spaces

https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/a-good-w...

In some parts of the US it is certainly the case that golf courses are private and as a citizen you notice there are v. Few parks but lots of good courses. Many of the courses pay little in taxes so they’re also feels that there is a disparity between how the rest of society functions and golf courses.

Los Angeles is a v. Good example - huge urban sprawl - poor urban planning - few green spaces - amazing golf courses - as a runner I personally noticed I would be running around golf courses and not have any parks near me

In the US many golf courses are owned by local governments as part of public parks.

Many new courses in the US are also built on non-developable land like former landfills.

Not trying to defend all courses, but at least in the US it’s not just uniformly bad.

US is a mixed bag. Where i am from, Michigan, we have over 600 courses and 87% of them are open to the public.

Are you saying your country's government, for some reason, spends its money on private golf courses?

Yeah, I could imagine golf being a sore spot for Indians. I never imagined India would even be a hotspot for golf, but given the amount of corruption going on, it would make sense that golf courses would be foisted upon the public. It’s always discouraging to see the amount of upper class Indians who, despite colonial times being long gone, are still very willing to sell out their countrymen to appease whites or to fit a British/white ideal. I hope I’m wrong about this impression, and I’m just seeing cherry picked news articles, but your reaction makes me think otherwise….

> Golf courses are lungs of many of the growing cities, across the world

What? Why and how? And why wouldn't leaving a patch of forest there be way more efficient?

Nice! Someone shared thAT wiki with me recently on reddit. I had not been aware of it before. Great stuff!

I'm not a lawyer but my stack is clean. My base layer is OSM, which is licensed for exactly this stuff (and attributed). On top of that I used golfcourseapi.com which i also recommend (affordable, and fairly reliable so far, but not always current). Then community notes etc.

I cross reference against other sources but I am only publishing facts, which are not copyrightable in the US.

Would love to touch base one day and compare notes. I work in the golf industry so mostly just made this for myself. But after sharing with some friends and co workers i thought the wider golf community might appreciate it

There's already one club I can see on there that doesn't actually exist.

Is a running gag in the area where I grew up, and made it on this list somehow. So that's weird.

OSM probably has the best data on golf courses because for many courses, people have mapped each 'golf=hole' as a way, and mapped other golf course features such as 'golf=bunker', 'golf=green', etc.

OSM knows of almost 40k golf courses around the world.[2] This compares to 38k golf courses known to the R&A Golf Around the World Fourth Edition (2021) report and 37.6k courses listed in the NGF course database as of July 2024. It's likely OSM knows of 99.99..% of all active golf courses and also still retains tags for closed/unused golf courses too. So if OSM were to be inaccurate, it'd likely be inaccurate for whether a golf course is open or closed, rather than OSM not knowing about a golf course existing.

I wonder whether an OSM tile server / custom style sheet for golfers would be easiest and most useful/comprehensive way to keep track of golf courses?

[1] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:golf%3Dhole

[2] https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/leisure=golf_course#o...

[3] https://assets.randa.org/c42c7bf4-dca7-00ea-4f2e-373223f80f7...

[4] https://thegolfwire.com/worldwide-golf-course-development-re...

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

It definitely can be enjoyed, but does it beat a walk in the forest? Not necessarily.

Golf is a social marker in Anglo-Saxon countries. Only the highest classes used to be able to afford it. In America they built a lot of courses because they have the space, and there was demand, obviously because lower classes wanted to feel like they’ve made it. Kind of like wearing tuxedos (or owning a Mercedes Benz in Eastern Europe).

Obviously the higher classes just got more exclusive markers (particular clubs, private jets, islands, etc.), but America is left with all that land converted into courses which apparently aren’t even used that much nowadays. Turns out it can get boring quickly.

yeah mini golf would be a nice add. I'd like to get all practice facilities and indoor/ sim golf as well eventually.

Not yet but i'd like to port it back somehow eventually. I've definitely named a lot of their unnamed courses on OSM

In a lot of places, that golf course is the most beautiful piece of land around you, not just well maintained but lot of wildlife, birds, deer etc. so having that right on your backyard whether you golf or do not golf is a great attraction

retirement communities in florida have a lot of these weird mini private courses.

I think the corrections are better filed in the linked web app. ;)

why?

that's the University of Minnesota Les Bolstad golf course

https://www.uofmgolf.com/teetime

please report through the site!

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

good idea!

Not a bad idea i have not heard of those

eventually yes. I've named a bunch that were unnamed from OSM

you can fill out missing info right on the site. There is a buttons for missing/ correcting data and you can fill out any info. Appreciate any that do!

Is the Lake course as good as I’ve heard?

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.

If you expand the filters, you can see it allows you to select public or private.

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

Yes. After i work out best pipeline in North America id like to expand worldwide.

It will take some time i'm just doing this in spare time.

The courses around me cost like $25-50 for a group tee time reservation. It's pretty cheap to get a set of second hand clubs, my small collection was had for like $75 over the years. You don't have to be rich to play golf.

Plus the golf courses around me are often municipal, they've got some nice bike paths to cut through the urban landscape around and through the links. It's a much nicer ride than along busy streets.

That said I do tend to enjoy disc golf more than traditional golf. I have never had too good of a shot.

Well, golf fields are not as bad for environment as datac... I mean mines and factories.

Really, golf courses are taxed much lower usually, as they go as green open spaces (similar to protected forest areas), and also their assessed land value does not account for neighboring residential prices, so their tax is based on lower value than land can be sold at.

Yes. Canada and Mexico next. Then will move to EU Asia etc. Want to work out all the hiccups in US first

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.

100

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.

Seems to be mostly be a US-only phenomenon

And even then, a broad generalisation

It’s $10 USD/round in my area, cheaper than bowling by a mile

yeah maybe they'll donate one day.

Are you suggesting a causal link between Parkinson's Disease and golf course locations? Or is "Parkinson's" a golf term??

This doesn't provide the same level of information I (or most golfers) are looing for