Privacy Policy

Last updated November 6, 2026.

This policy explains what information PinHigh collects when you use this website and the PinHigh app, what we do with it, and the choices you have. We've tried to write it plainly. It may change before PinHigh launches.

PinHigh is still in development. While we are testing, accounts and saved rounds may be reset or deleted without notice.

Who we are

PinHigh is run by Derek Reese and Blake Smith (“we” and “us” in this policy). We decide how your information is used and are responsible for it. You can reach us at admin@usepinhigh.com.

What we collect

Account details. Your email address and a password. Your password is handled by our sign-in provider and stored only in a protected, scrambled form. We never see it and cannot read it back. When you sign up we ask the year you were born, only to check you're old enough; we don't keep it.

Agreeing to our terms. Which version of our Terms and this policy you agreed to, and when.

Profile. The display name you choose and, if you want to use friends, a username.

Friends. Who you have sent a friend request to, who has sent one to you, and who you are friends with.

Scheduled rounds. When you schedule a round: the course name, the tee time and its time zone, the number of holes, who you invited, and how each person answered.

Notification details. If you allow phone notifications, an identifier for your device that lets us send them to it, and your choice of whether to get invitations by phone notification, by email, both, or neither.

Challenges, achievements, and points. The weekly challenges you were given, which ones you completed, the achievements you have earned, and the points and level that come from them. These are worked out from your rounds and what you do in the app.

Friends' activity. If you share your rounds with friends (you can turn this off), the finished rounds they see, and the reactions you and they leave on them.

PinHigh Pro. Whether your account has Pro. If it does: the golf groups you save (their names, the golfers in them, and their usual course and game), your saved game formats, and the challenges you set up with friends, who is in them, and how each person answered.

Tournaments. If you enter a tournament: that you entered, the group you were put in, and your scores in it. If you ask to run tournaments as a course or business: the name of the organization, and the tournaments you set up.

Your rounds. What you enter when you keep score: the course name, the date and time, the par for each hole, your strokes, and the names and strokes of any other golfers you add to your scorecard. If you choose the course from our course list, we also keep which course and which tees. If you play a game in the round, its format and any handicap strokes you entered for each golfer.

Technical information. When you use the site or app, your device sends your IP address, as every internet connection does. We use it to deliver the service and to limit abuse, such as repeated sign-in attempts. Our servers keep operational logs for up to 30 days.

Counting visits. We count how many people visit this website from its access logs, which record each request: your IP address, the full address requested, the address of the page that linked you there, your browser's description of itself, and the time. On a few pages, such as signing in and the links in our emails, the address requested includes your email address or a code from our email. Once a day we work out totals from them: page views, visitors, the most visited pages, the sites and campaigns that sent visitors (from the site that linked you, or the tags on a link or ad, such as utm_source), visitors by country (approximate: the country of the server that answered you), and how many times the early-access form was sent, by what brought the visitor. A visitor is counted by turning the IP address and browser description into a one-way code with a key that is made fresh for each day's count and then thrown away, so the totals can't be traced back to anyone. The totals are kept; the access logs are deleted after 14 days. We don't use cookies, tracking scripts, or analytics companies for this.

When you last used PinHigh. We note the time of your latest request when you're signed in, only the latest one, so we can count how many golfers are using PinHigh. It's deleted with your account.

The early-access waitlist. While the form says “Demo mode”, an email entered there is checked for formatting and then discarded; it is not stored or shared. Once the waitlist is open, we keep the email address you enter, when you agreed to hear from us, and whether you have confirmed it or unsubscribed. We email you a link to confirm the address, and you are only on the list once you do; an address that isn't confirmed within 30 days is deleted. We use it only to send early-access and development updates about PinHigh. Every update has a link to unsubscribe. After you unsubscribe we keep the address, marked as unsubscribed, so we don't email you again, and we delete it if you ask. The waitlist is separate from PinHigh accounts: deleting your account doesn't remove a waitlist signup, and leaving the waitlist doesn't affect your account. Ask us and we'll delete either.

What we don't collect

• We don't use advertising or analytics trackers on this website or in the app.
• We don't collect your location, contacts, or photos.
• We don't collect payment details. PinHigh does not take payments today, and Money Round never handles money.

How we use it

• To create your account and sign you in.
• To save your rounds and show them back to you, with totals and averages worked out from your scores.
• To set weekly challenges that suit how you have been scoring, and to keep your points and level.
• To let other golfers find you by username and to keep your list of friends.
• To email you a code when you confirm your address or reset your password.
• To tell you, by phone notification and by email, when a friend invites you to a round, and by phone notification when a friend adds you to a round they are keeping score for, finishes that round so you can confirm it, sends you a friend request, or accepts yours, and about challenges with friends you're invited to or in. You can turn either off in the app under Profile, then Notifications.
• To work out the standings of a game or a Money Round, and who owes whom, from the scores entered.
• To send early-access and development updates to people who confirmed they want them.
• To turn on PinHigh Pro for a golfer, decide on requests to run tournaments, and help with problems.
• To keep the service secure and working.
• To keep golfers safe from each other: to stop golfers you've blocked from finding you, and to look into reports.

We don't sell your information, and we don't use it for advertising.

What other golfers can see

Choosing a username is optional. Once you choose one, any signed-in golfer who searches for it can see your username and display name, and can send you a friend request. Golfers you have a request with, and your friends, see the same two things. Your friends can also see your level, your points, and the achievements you have earned, with the date you earned each. No other golfer can see your email address. Who can see your rounds and scores is set out below; nobody else can.

You can decline a request, cancel one you sent, or remove a friend at any time in the app. The other golfer is not notified.

Only your friends can invite you to a round. Everyone on a scheduled round, the organizer and each person invited, can see the course and tee time, the username and display name of everyone else on it, and whether each person has accepted or declined. An invitation sent to a friend includes your display name and username.

When you keep score for a round, you can add friends to it from your friends list. A friend you add can see that round in their app while you are still friends, including while it's being played, as scores are entered: the course, your display name and username, and the scorecard, with the name and scores of everyone on it. They can't change it. Once you finish, they can confirm it was them, and only then does it count toward their stats, handicap estimate, challenges, and achievements; if you later change their scores, they're asked again. Only your friends can be added this way; anyone else you add is kept as a name only.

Your friends see the rounds you finish in their friends' activity for 30 days: the course, the date, your display name and username, your own hole-by-hole scores (not the scores of anyone you played with), and any achievements you earned. Nobody who isn't your friend sees them. You can stop sharing your rounds at any time in the app under Profile. Friends can react to a round with an emoji, and everyone who can see the round sees how many of each reaction it has.

Games and Money Round. If a round has a game, such as skins or match play, everyone who can see the round sees its standings. If it has a Money Round, the golfers in it see the stakes, who has accepted or declined them, and the results: who is up or down and who owes whom, and how much.

Challenges with friends. Everyone invited to a challenge sees its name, dates, and goal, who is in it, how each person answered, and the standings worked out from their rounds.

Your golf groups and saved game formats are visible only to you.

Tournaments and public leaderboards

A tournament is run by a course or business that we have approved as an organizer. You enter one yourself, in the app, with a code from the organizer. When you do, your display name, your group and tee time, your team if it is a team event, and your scores in that tournament appear on its leaderboard and tee sheet. The leaderboard is public: anyone who has its link can see it without signing in, and the organizer may show it on a screen or share the link. It never shows your email address or your username.

The organizer can also see the display name and username of everyone who has entered, and can download the standings and the tee sheet as files, which contain display names and scores. You can withdraw from a tournament in the app at any time, which takes you off its leaderboard.

If you ask to run tournaments, we see the organization name you give us and the email address on your account, so that we can decide on your request. The organization name is shown to players and on leaderboards.

Other golfers you add

If you add golfers to a scorecard by name, you give us their names and scores. Please only add people who are happy for you to do that. Those names and scores are visible to you, and to any friends you added to the same round.

Your location

If you turn on distances while scoring, the app uses your phone's location to work out how far you are from the green. That happens on your phone: your location is not sent to PinHigh or stored by us. You can turn it off at any time in your phone's settings.

Cookies and device storage

When you sign in on this website we set a small number of cookies that keep you signed in. They are needed for your account to work, they cannot be read by scripts on the page, and they are removed when you sign out. We don't use cookies for advertising or tracking.

The app keeps a sign-in token in your phone's secure storage so you stay signed in. It also keeps a copy of your rounds and recent information on your phone, so it opens quickly and you can keep score without a signal. Both are removed from the phone when you sign out.

If a birth year entered at sign-up is under our minimum age, the app or this website remembers that for a day (a cookie on the website), so the form can't simply be tried again. It holds no personal information.

Where it's stored and who handles it

Your information is stored in the United States on Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides our hosting, database, sign-in system, and the delivery of confirmation and invitation emails. AWS handles it on our behalf, under its own security and privacy commitments.

Phone notifications are delivered through Expo's push notification service, which passes them to Apple or Google to reach your phone. To do that, those services receive your device identifier and the text of the notification, which names the friend it is about and, for a round, the course and, for an invitation, the tee time.

When you search for a golf course, the words you typed are sent to our course data provider, GolfCourseAPI, to find matching courses. Hole maps come from OpenStreetMap, and course photos from the US Geological Survey's aerial imagery, each asked for by course location. Nothing that identifies you is sent with any of them.

We don't share your information with anyone else, unless the law requires us to.

Our own access. As PinHigh's administrators, we can look up an account by email address or username (to turn on PinHigh Pro or help with a problem), see requests to run tournaments, and see the early-access waitlist. We use this access only to run the service.

Blocking and reports. You can block another golfer, which ends any friendship or request between you, takes each of you off the other's scheduled rounds and challenges, and stops either of you finding the other or seeing the other in a round or challenge a friend sets up; they aren't told. Public tournament leaderboards aren't affected. You can also report a golfer. A report, with the reason and anything you write, is seen only by us, and the golfer reported isn't told who sent it. If a report is upheld, we may reset the golfer's display name and username, or remove their account. When we do, we keep the usernames they used, on their own and not linked to anything else, so nobody can take those names again. Blocks and reports are deleted when either account is deleted.

Information is encrypted while it travels between your device and our servers and while it is stored. Our database cannot be reached directly from the internet. No system is perfectly secure, and we can't promise that ours is.

How long we keep it

We keep your account and rounds until you delete your account. After that, copies can remain in encrypted backups for up to 7 days before they are overwritten.

Your choices

• See and change your details. Your account page on this site (once accounts open) shows your email, display name, username, and recent rounds, and lets you change your display name, username, and password.
• Delete everything. The same page, or Profile then Delete account in the app, lets you delete your account. That removes, straight away, your profile and username, your friends and friend requests, every round you have saved and the reactions on them, the rounds you scheduled and your invitations, your device identifiers, your challenges, achievements and points, your golf groups and saved game formats, the challenges with friends you set up and your place in others', your tournament entries, and any organization and tournaments you run. A round a friend kept with you on it stays on their scorecard, with your name only, like any golfer added by name.
• Ask us. For anything else, including a copy of your information, contact us using the details below.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us for a copy of your information, to correct it, or to delete it, by emailing admin@usepinhigh.com. We'll reply within 30 days, and may need to confirm it's really you first. We won't treat you differently for asking.

California. We don't sell your personal information, and we don't share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We don't use sensitive personal information to infer things about you.

The European Economic Area and the United Kingdom. We use your information to provide the service you asked for (your account, rounds, friends, and the features you use); with your consent, which you can withdraw at any time, for early-access emails and phone notifications; and because we have a legitimate interest in keeping PinHigh secure and preventing abuse. Your information is stored and processed in the United States. You may also complain to your local data protection authority.

Children and age limits

PinHigh is not intended for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their information.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle your information, we will update this page and the date at the top. If a change affects how we use information we already have, we'll tell you in the app or by email before it applies.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your information? Email admin@usepinhigh.com, and Derek Reese and Blake Smith will get back to you.