OpenPinsheet

Where the cup was, by date and hole.

Every day the cup stands somewhere on each green. OpenPinsheet keeps a record of where, as open data under the Open Database License, so the history of a green belongs to the club and not to the tool it was typed into.

Statusformat draft, version 1no day published yetone channel: OpenYardage

A record

On this date, on this hole, the cup was here.

That is all a record says. The point locates itself: whoever wants to know which course or which green it belongs to asks the coordinate, not an ID. The hole number is the one the club uses, and it describes the record without being a key.

Example, not real data

date,date_basis,hole,lat,lon,source,accuracy_m,front_m,left_m,input_front,input_offset,input_side,input_unit,channel,missing
2027-04-12,local,7,52.1234561,13.1234573,estimated,,12,9.5,12,5,right,m,openyardage,
2027-04-12,local,8,52.1241077,13.122915,mapped,,,,,,,,openyardage,
2027-04-12,local,9,,,,,,,,,,,,1

The last row is a hole where a pin was set that day but its position has been lost. It stays in the file, because a cup did stand there.

Sources

Every position says how it was obtained. An estimate is useful, and it is not a measurement; the column source keeps the two apart.

estimated

Metres or yards from the front edge and from the left or right edge, as a greenkeeper reads them off. Converted to a coordinate against the green outline in OpenStreetMap on that day. What was typed stays in the record, so anyone can redo the conversion.

How well it matches the ground depends on how well the outline matches the green. That has not been measured, so an estimate carries no accuracy_m.

surveyed

GNSS with RTK or similar. accuracy_m is required: the horizontal accuracy the device reports.

mapped

Placed on a map or an aerial image. accuracy_m is optional.

detectedlater

A camera or LiDAR finds the cup. accuracy_m is required.

phone GPSnot accepted

Two metres at best, which on a green is the difference between two pin positions.

Columns

One row per day and hole. The same names are used in the CSV and in the properties of the GeoJSON. Empty means unknown, never zero.

Column	Meaning
When and where
date	Calendar date at the course, `YYYY-MM-DD`.
date_basis	`local`, or `utc` where the local date was not recorded. In New Zealand the two are often a day apart.
hole	The hole as the club names it: `7`, later perhaps `B3`.
lat, lon	WGS84 in degrees, seven decimals for every source.
How it was obtained
source	`estimated`, `surveyed`, `mapped` or `detected`.
accuracy_m	Horizontal accuracy in metres, where one was measured.
front_m, left_m	Metres from the front and the left edge, read against the OpenStreetMap green of that day.
input_front, input_offset	What was typed: distance from the front and from the side edge, in the unit typed.
input_side	`left` or `right`: which edge the offset is measured from.
input_unit	`m` or `yd`.
Who vouches for it
channel	The organisation the record came through. See Channels.
missing	`1` if a pin was set that day but its position is lost. Everything from `lat` to `channel` is then empty.

Not in the data

No IDs for courses, holes, greens or people, and no OpenStreetMap IDs. They change; a coordinate does not.
No names and no e-mail addresses.
No time of day. At a small club, the time the pins were set is one person's working hours.
No pin sets, rotations or plans. Those belong to the tool a club works with.

Files

A day is published three days later, once no course anywhere can still enter pins for it. After that the file does not change. Corrections and withdrawals get files of their own, so what was published on a day can always be checked.

Layout

v1/index.json                 list of files, sizes, sha256, format version
v1/days/2027-04-12.csv
v1/days/2027-04-12.geojson
v1/years/2027.csv             all days of a year

Nothing published yet. Files appear here from the first day a club enters pins.

Licence

The data is under the Open Database License 1.0, the licence of OpenStreetMap. Anyone may use, copy and share it, also commercially. Whoever builds a database from it names the source and shares that database under the same licence. The licence cannot be withdrawn.

Attribution

Pin positions: OpenPinsheet and its channels, Open Database License 1.0.

Estimated positions are computed against green outlines from OpenStreetMap: map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

The second line is not a courtesy: a position computed against an OpenStreetMap outline is derived from OpenStreetMap, and the ODbL asks for that credit.

Channels

Nobody enters pins here directly. Records come through channels: tools that clubs already use. A channel decides who may enter pins for a course and vouches for it.

OpenYardageopenyardage

Clubs enter today's pins in the club dashboard, in metres or yards from the edges of the green.

Becoming a channel

You are an organisation with a contact address.
The clubs entering pins through you agree to the Open Database License.
You check who enters pins for a course.
You state which sources you deliver, and the accuracy where it is measured.

Write to info@openyardage.com. The list of channels on this page is public, and so is every change to it.