Attribution & Sources

We stand on other people's open data. Here's all of it.

OpenGolfAPI is a commons built out of other commons. Every source below is named, licensed, and linked — that's not a courtesy, it's the deal we accepted when we used the data. If you redistribute anything you got from us, you inherit these obligations too.

Attribute us like this

© OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0) via OpenGolfAPI

Anywhere you display course data from OpenGolfAPI — a map, a list, an app screen, an export — that line (or an equivalent that names OpenStreetMap) has to be visible or one click away. The same string ships in every API response as _attribution.

Course data

OpenStreetMapODbL 1.0

Course discovery, coordinates, boundaries, hole and hazard geometry, and much of the surrounding points-of-interest data. This is the backbone of the dataset.

© OpenStreetMap contributors · openstreetmap.org/copyright · ODbL 1.0 full text

Wikipedia & WikidataCC BY-SA 4.0

Course descriptions and history, plus Wikidata identifiers used to match courses. Every description carries its own source link and licence in the API as description_source.

Text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikidata is CC0. Images from Wikimedia Commons carry their own per-file licences.

Foursquare Open Source Places / Overture MapsApache 2.0

Fills in contact and identity facts — phone numbers, websites, social links, city — where no open feed covered them. Used under the Apache License 2.0.

Apache License 2.0

NominatimODbL 1.0

Addresses and postal codes, geocoded from OpenStreetMap data. © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Weather, climate & terrain

Open-MeteoCC BY 4.0

Monthly climate normals, "best months to play", and live on-course conditions. Weather data by Open-Meteo.com. The credit travels with the payload — every climate response carries a source object naming Open-Meteo and CC BY 4.0.

CC BY 4.0

NOAA — U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020Public domain

30-year monthly temperature and precipitation normals used to backfill U.S. courses. A work of the U.S. federal government — no attribution required, credited anyway.

weather.gov (NWS API)Public domain

Live U.S. forecasts on the per-course weather endpoint. National Weather Service, U.S. federal government — public domain.

sunrise-sunset.orgFree API

Sunrise, sunset, day length and golden-hour windows — used to work out how much daylight is left for a round. Free public API, used within its terms.

Open-ElevationOpen API

Ground elevation per hole, via the free Open-Elevation lookup API. The terrain underneath it is NASA SRTM — public domain.

USGS 3DEPPublic domain

LiDAR elevation used to derive course terrain. U.S. Geological Survey — public domain.

The community

Golfers, course staff, and contributorsODbL 1.0

Corrections, submissions, photos and local knowledge sent in by people who play these courses. Contributions go back into the open dataset under the same licence everyone else gets — nobody's edit gets locked up.

What we license back to you

The dataset is ODbL 1.0 — the same licence as OpenStreetMap. Use it commercially, build a business on it; just attribute the sources and share alike if you publish a derived database. Our open standards (OpenShot, Moments, OpenMatch, OpenJoin, the OpenGolf ID schema) are CC0 — take them, no strings.

Something missing or wrong?

If we've used your data and failed to credit it properly, that's a bug and we'll fix it fast — info@opengolfapi.org or open an issue.