--- title: Show HN: I mapped every US golf course – 16k+ courses,... description: A web application that displays every US golf course on an interactive map, featuring scorecards, ratings, weather information, and tee times. Location data is... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/show-hn-i-mapped-every-us-golf-course-16k-courses-free-no-signup-0hce6sfwn twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Show HN: I mapped every US golf course – 16k+ courses, free, no signup | daily.dev og:description: A web application that displays every US golf course on an interactive map, featuring scorecards, ratings, weather information, and tee times. Location data is... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/show-hn-i-mapped-every-us-golf-course-16k-courses-free-no-signup-0hce6sfwn og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/0HCE6SfWN.png og:image:alt: Show HN: I mapped every US golf course – 16k+ courses, free, no signup og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Show HN: I mapped every US golf course – 16k+ courses, free, no signup **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 1 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A web application that displays every US golf course on an interactive map, featuring scorecards, ratings, weather information, and tee times. Location data is sourced from OpenStreetMap contributors. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 71 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-07-26). **TL;DR:** The community is generally enthusiastic about the golf course map project itself, offering feature suggestions and data corrections, while a side debate emerges about whether golf courses are elitist/wasteful or accessible public amenities. **Sentiment:** 60% positive · 30% mixed · 10% skeptical **The case for** - Many US golf courses are publicly accessible and affordable (as low as $10/round), making them far from exclusively elite. - Golf courses often provide green space, wildlife habitat, and scenic surroundings that benefit nearby residents even non-golfers. - The project uses open data (OSM) and welcomes community contributions, making it a collaborative and transparent resource. - Potential for useful data extensions like polygon areas, water usage stats, and membership status already partially implemented. **The pushback** - In some countries (notably India), golf courses occupy public land via cheap leases, effectively privatizing green space for the wealthy. - Golf courses in urban areas can consume significant water and land that could serve as public parks or housing. - Golf courses are often taxed at lower rates as 'green space' despite lacking the biodiversity of actual forests or parks. - Golf Now referral links may harm small, independent golf courses according to one commenter in the industry. **By community** - hackernews (positive): Commenters are largely supportive of the map project, contributing corrections and feature ideas, with a secondary debate about golf course accessibility and environmental impact that stays civil. **Hottest debate:** Whether golf courses are wasteful, exclusionary land uses or legitimate, accessible public green spaces depends heavily on geography and local context. **Open questions** - Are there plans to expand the map beyond North America to Europe, Asia, and the rest of the world? - Will polygon area data be added to show the actual footprint of each course? - Will the dataset be contributed back to OpenStreetMap to benefit the broader community? - Can water usage and source data be estimated or integrated from this dataset? **Highlights** > Sounds good, and it would make sense that OSM and I have some crossover at this point. I'm effectively fine with sharing my data via Creative Commons NonCommercial licences (say, CC BY-NC 4.0). Much of my site depends on fair use and not being for profit. It looks like you're not using referral advertising by linking to Golf Now. I would say -- golf nut to golf nut -- as someone who cares about small, mom-and-pop golf courses, Golf Now is incredibly bad for the industry. I actively avoided linking to it, and tried to link to individual sites booking, but that became problematic due to the nature of wikis and malicious editing. I would just say, if you care about the these small courses, I wouldn't give free advertising to Golf Now, when the vast majority of your users can probably book directly through the course's website. I'm entirely happy to collaborate on this, I really just care about someone mapping all the golf courses even if it's not me. I'm happy to collaborate even if we're trying to build different things. Feel free to reach to me here, on GolfCourse.Wiki, or via the blog (for some reason most people contact me through the blog): https://golfcoursewiki.substack.com/ > — [scoofy on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49055547) > So, I started https://golfcourse.wiki in 2020, and I see courses that basically only I’ve mapped. It’s cool, I want it to be public, if you want to work together, do reach out. I would also say what you are doing is almost certainly opening you up to liability if you are just scraping other sites and republishing their data. One paper town that you published and you might have a lawsuit on your hands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_settlement > — [scoofy on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49054983) > 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. > — [bruce511 on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49054676) > Yes. Canada and Mexico next. Then will move to EU Asia etc. Want to work out all the hiccups in US first > — [rickmf on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49054744) > 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 > — [navaed01 on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49055971) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49054010) · 51 points · 71 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [An In-Browser Visualizer For GPS Satellites](https://daily.dev/posts/an-in-browser-visualizer-for-gps-satellites-0ljxixhnl) · Hackaday · 3 upvotes · 0 comments - [GeoUtil — Free Online Map & Geography Tools](https://daily.dev/posts/geoutil-free-online-map-geography-tools-dyurj5oky) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [One Million Screenshots](https://daily.dev/posts/one-million-screenshots-fnmoxls8j) · Brad Frost · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [You can now fly around the world in Google Earth from the comfort of your browser](https://daily.dev/posts/you-can-now-fly-around-the-world-in-google-earth-from-the-comfort-of-your-browser-acs272zho) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#gis](https://daily.dev/tags/gis) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/show-hn-i-mapped-every-us-golf-course-16k-courses-free-no-signup-0hce6sfwn) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Show HN: I mapped every US golf course – 16k+ courses, free, no signup","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/show-hn-i-mapped-every-us-golf-course-16k-courses-free-no-signup-0hce6sfwn","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/show-hn-i-mapped-every-us-golf-course-16k-courses-free-no-signup-0hce6sfwn"},"datePublished":"2026-07-26T04:17:46.986Z","dateModified":"2026-07-26T09:03:53.422Z","description":"A web application that displays every US golf course on an interactive map, featuring scorecards, ratings, weather information, and tee times. Location data is...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--2-1xRawN--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2011","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--2-1xRawN--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2011","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Hacker News","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Hacker News","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/hn","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/show-hn-i-mapped-every-us-golf-course-16k-courses-free-no-signup-0hce6sfwn","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"gis","timeRequired":"PT1M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hacker News","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Show HN: I mapped every US golf course – 16k+ courses, free, no signup"}]} ```