Frequently Asked Questions

Golf TotalGuide was built by a team of golfers and engineers who got tired of generic "top 10" lists and wanted recommendations grounded in real course data. We combine USGS LiDAR (for terrain, tree canopy and hazard detection), simulator-driven shot modeling, and golfer reviews to match real players to real courses. We're based in Massachusetts and currently cover Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont, with Connecticut and Maine next.

Ask the AI Guide in the app (e.g. "courses near Wayland, MA" or "courses within 25 miles of Boston") and it returns the nearest matches with distance, slope rating, par, and price. You can also browse in the app and filter by city, holes, course type, and amenities.

The website at totalguide.net is free to browse — read articles, explore tournaments, and learn about the app. The **Golf TotalGuide iOS app** is a subscription: it's free to download and every new subscriber gets a **1-month free trial** (limited-time offer), then **$19.99/year** for full access — course matching, AI Guide chat, saved courses, trip planning, and the hole-by-hole Plan tab — across Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont. You can cancel anytime in iOS Settings → your Apple ID → Subscriptions.

The Coupons tab collects redeemable deals at select courses — a nice way to save on a round or find a reason to try somewhere new. To use one, open it and tap **Redeem** in front of course staff: it flips to a live, timestamped **VALID** screen you show at the counter, and each coupon is one-time-use. One tip before you head out — offers come from the courses themselves and are honored at their discretion, so it's worth a quick look at the coupon's terms and expiration first. (TotalGuide surfaces the deal but isn't the merchant.) New offers are added as courses sign on — if the tab looks quiet in your area, check back.

Yes. In the app, tap **+** next to the Guide's message box and take a photo of your scorecard (or choose one from your photos). The Guide reads the course and every player's scores and sets it up as a round. Check the numbers — handwriting can be misread, and hard-to-read holes are marked — then save it.

Yes. Keep score from your wrist during a round, with distances to the green, and your round lands on your iPhone when you finish. The watch app needs watchOS 10 or later and installs with the iPhone app.

Yes. Golf TotalGuide runs on iPad as well as iPhone, with the same subscription and your account synced across both.

The Mass Century Club is the 49 public Massachusetts golf courses that have been open more than 100 years, from the Berkshires to Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. The app tracks which ones you've played, with a leaderboard and a badge for each era. Read more in The Century Club Challenge.

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont — 356 public, semi-private, municipal and resort courses, and growing. Connecticut and Maine are next.

LiDAR is laser-based aerial scanning that produces high-resolution elevation models (down to 1 meter). We use USGS 3DEP LiDAR to extract every course's terrain, tree canopy, bunker depths, water features, and dogleg angles directly from the data — not from someone's subjective scorecard description. That's how we get accurate elevation change, walkability scores, and forced-carry counts that match what you actually experience on the course.

The difficulty score (0–100) describes the **course**, not how any particular golfer scores on it. It's built from the course's own features — how safe the landing areas are, elevation change, forced carries, bunkers and tree coverage — measured from mapping and LiDAR data. Roughly: under 40 plays easy, 40–74 moderate, and 75 or more hard. For how a course suits *your* game, look at its match label and grades instead.

Slope rating measures how much harder a course plays for a bogey golfer (around 20 handicap) than for a scratch golfer. The USGA scale runs 55 (easiest) to 155 (hardest), with 113 as the average. Higher slope means the course punishes mistakes more — narrow corridors, lots of hazards, or tough greens magnify the gap between good and average golfers. See our full breakdown in Course Rating vs. Slope Rating.

Course rating is what a SCRATCH golfer is expected to shoot from a given set of tees (e.g. 71.9 means a scratch player averages 71.9 on that course). Slope rating measures how much harder the course plays for a BOGEY golfer relative to that scratch baseline. Both numbers come from USGA-trained raters and are required to compute a handicap-adjusted score.

Walkability is scored 1–5 from what golfers who've played the course say about walking it in their reviews, alongside the course's terrain and length. A 5 is a compact course that's easy on foot; a 1 is a hilly, spread-out layout that's much easier with a cart. Courses with few reviews may not have a score yet.

If you're organizing a charity golf tournament in New England (MA, RI, CT, NH, VT, ME), email us at tournaments@totalguide.net with the details and we'll add it. Helpful to include: - **Tournament name and date** - **Host course** (city + state) - **Supporting charity / cause** - **Event registration link** (optional but strongly recommended) - **Image** (flyer or charity logo URL — optional) Submissions are reviewed before going live — listings typically appear on the site within **3 to 5 days after review**, and you'll get a confirmation email immediately after submitting.

If you run or know of an indoor golf simulator in New England (MA, RI, CT, NH, VT, ME), email us at support@totalguide.net with the details and we'll add it. Helpful to include: - **Facility name** - **City and state** (street, zip optional) - **Phone, email, website** (optional) - **Simulator technology** — TrackMan, Full Swing, Foresight, Uneekor, etc. - **Image** (a photo of the bay or your logo — optional) Submissions are reviewed before going live — listings typically appear on the site within **3 to 5 days after review**, and you'll get a confirmation email immediately after submitting.

The quiz is 17 questions covering your skill level, driving distance, shot shape, miss tendency, risk tolerance, and preferences for things like walkability, pricing, and conditions. Your answers map you to one of 312 golfer profiles. Each course in our system has been simulated against all 312 profiles, so we can match you to courses where players like you tend to score well and have fun. Answer it any time from the Profile tab in the Golf TotalGuide app.

The match label says how a course ranks for **your** Golfer Profile against every other course in the state, across 30 course dimensions (forgiveness, distance fit, miss tolerance, green difficulty, strategic complexity, conditions and more). **High** means the top 5% of courses for you, **Good** the top 15%, **Moderate** the top 40%, **Fair** the top 70%, and **Low** the rest. If a course is over the budget or under the walkability you asked for, a High is shown as Good. The label appears next to each course in AI Guide results and on every course page.

On the course detail page, the "Reasons to play" and "Tradeoffs" lists are personalized to YOUR Golfer Profile. Pros highlight where the course's design fits your game (e.g. "great landing zones for your distance", "forgiving of your right miss"). Tradeoffs flag where it might frustrate you (e.g. "54 bunkers — precision rewarded", "slope 131 — a meaningful test"). They're computed from the same 30 course dimensions as the match percentage.

Yes. Your matches stay tied to your latest Golfer Profile answers — update them any time from the Profile tab in the app and your recommendations refresh to reflect the change in your game.

Open the Trips tab in the Golf TotalGuide app, create a trip, and organize your courses by day. You can add hotels and restaurants alongside your rounds, and the AI Guide can suggest options near any course you're considering. Trips are saved to your account and sync across your devices.

Yes. Ask the Guide what's open (for example, "tee times at Stow Acres Saturday morning for 2") and it shows **live tee times and prices** from the course's own booking system for more than 230 courses. Tap a time to book it on the course's own page — we don't take a booking fee or sit in the middle. For courses without online booking we show the phone number.

The website is free to browse with no account or login. Accounts live in the **TotalGuide iOS app**, where you sign in with email, Google, or Apple to save your Golfer Profile, get personalized match percentages, plan trips, leave reviews, and use the Plan tab. Using the app requires an active subscription, which starts with a limited-time 1-month free trial.

Your Golfer Profile answers and saved trips are tied to your account and only used to personalize recommendations. We don't sell your data, and we don't use it to train third-party AI models. Chat conversations are kept while your account is active (on no fixed schedule) to maintain your history and improve the assistant; you can delete them any time, and they're removed within 30 days of account deletion. See our privacy policy for the full details.

Yes — in the Golf TotalGuide app. Signed-in users can rate any course on six categories (conditions, greens, layout, pace, value, walkability) and leave a written review. Reviews are moderated to keep the signal-to-noise ratio high.

The TotalGuide iOS app is free to download and starts with a **1-month free trial** (a limited-time offer — the standard trial length may change). After the trial it's **$19.99/year** for full access across Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont. You won't be charged until the trial ends, and you can cancel anytime during the trial in iOS Settings → your Apple ID → Subscriptions without being billed.

Your subscription is billed by Apple, so you manage or cancel it in **iOS Settings → your Apple ID → Subscriptions → TotalGuide**. If you cancel, you keep access through the end of your current billing period. Refunds are handled entirely by Apple, not TotalGuide — to request one, visit reportaproblem.apple.com.

The bell in the app collects your alerts: friend requests, when someone accepts your request, when a friend starts or finishes a round, and badges you earn. Unread alerts show in bold, and you can clear the ones you've read. You can also get them as notifications on your phone.

Open the subscription screen in the app and tap **Redeem a code**, then enter your code — or open the redeem link you were sent on your iPhone. Codes are handled by the App Store, so the offer applies to your Apple ID.