How to map a golf course

What to draw

• The grounds: a closed area tagged leisure=golf_course with the club's name in name. We match the course by name and position, so a wrong or missing name can hide it. Avoid landuse=* and do not add sport=golf to the outline.
• Each hole: one line from the middle of the tee to the middle of the green, drawn in that direction, tagged golf=hole and ref (just the number, such as 7). Add par and handicap (stroke index) only where you know them. Bend the line at the landing area on a dogleg.
• Features: closed areas tagged golf=green, golf=tee, golf=fairway, golf=bunker and golf=water_hazard or golf=lateral_water_hazard. Do not share nodes between a hole line and these outlines.

If something is already mapped, improve it rather than deleting and redrawing. The OpenStreetMap golf page (opens in a new tab) lists every tag.

More than one course at a club

Many clubs have two courses or two nines in the same grounds, so hole numbers repeat. Put golf:course:namewith the course's own name (for example Lower Course) on every golf=hole line of that course, the same on each hole. Without it we cannot tell the courses apart. Do not use golf:course on hole lines: on OpenStreetMap it means the number of holes.

Where the information may come from

• Do trace from Esri World Imagery or Bing aerial imagery, which are approved for OpenStreetMap, and add what you know from playing or walking the course.
• Nevercopy or trace from Google Maps, Earth or Street View, a club's course plan or yardage book, another app's course maps, or images from the club's website.
• Add par and handicap only from your own knowledge or the signs on the tees, never from a scorecard, website or app. If you are not sure, leave it out: a missing value is fine, a wrong one is not.
• Do not copy yardages (dist) from scorecards either.
• If you cannot tell which hole is which, map the grounds, greens, tees and bunkers and leave the hole lines alone.

Describing your edit

Say what you changed in the changeset comment and include the #teetime-golf-mapping hashtag, so we can find the edit. The editor link on a course page adds it for you.

When it shows up here

We refresh our copy of the OpenStreetMap golf data from time to time, so a course you map will not appear straight away. Once the next refresh has picked it up, the course page shows its hole-by-hole preview.

Thank you. Each course you finish helps every golfer who plays it.