Frequently Asked Questions

“Everything you need to know about in play: Golf Edition. Can’t find what you’re looking for? Email us at support@inplay-golf.com.”

Getting Started

"in play: Golf Edition" is a tournament management app for competitive amateur golfers and their support teams. It helps you organize tournament schedules, track entries, plan travel logistics, monitor expenses, and collaborate with coaches, parents, and caddies — all in one place — all from your iPhone or iPad.

The app is built for competitive junior, amateur, NCAA, and aspiring professional golfers, as well as the parents, coaches, caddies, and managers who support them. Whether you're an amateur golfer managing your own schedule or a parent coordinating multiple golfers in the family, the app adapts to your needs.

When you first open the app, a workspace is automatically created for you. Start by adding a golfer profile, then add tournaments and their courses. From there you can create entries, connecting a golfer with a tournament. On the entries you can add support persons, plan travel, and track expenses.

Account and Privacy

No. The app uses your Apple ID and iCloud account to sync your data across your devices. There's no separate signup, no password to remember, and no email list to opt into.

Your data is stored privately in your own Apple iCloud account using Apple's CloudKit framework. We do not operate servers that collect or store your personal information. Your golfer profiles, tournaments, schedules, travel plans, expenses, notes, etc. are yours - we don't see them and can't access them.

No. We do not sell, share, or transmit your data to third parties. We don't run advertising and we don't use third-party analytics. See our Privacy Policy for complete details.

Subscriptions & Limits

The free version gives you full access to all features but limits you to 1 golfer and 2 tournaments. This is great for trying out the app and managing a single golfer's near-term schedule.

Premium removes ALL limits — unlimited golfers and unlimited tournaments. It's available as a monthly or annual subscription.

Your data is preserved. You can still view everything, but you won't be able to add new golfers or tournaments beyond the free tier limits until you resubscribe.

Golfer Management

A golfer is a player profile that serves as the foundation for everything else in the app. Each tournament entry, travel plan, and expense is tied to a specific golfer. Whether you're a parent tracking one or more child's schedule golfer profiles are where it all starts.

Each golfer profile includes:

• Photo — Choose a picture from your photo library for easy identification

• Name — First and last name (required)

• Gender — Male or Female (required)

• Date of birth (required)

• School — Current school or program affiliation

• Graduation year

• Home address — Optional, useful for travel planning context

• Notes — Any additional information you want to track

On the free version, you can manage 1 golfer. Upgrading to a Premium subscription (monthly or annual) unlocks unlimited golfers.

The golfer detail page is a hub for everything related to that player. You'll see their profile information, home address if provided, and a complete list of their tournament entries split into Upcoming and Past tabs. You can add a new entry directly from the golfer's page and navigate to any existing entry for full details.

Yes. From the golfer detail page, tap the menu and select Share Schedule to generate a PDF of the golfer's upcoming registered and accepted tournament entries. Share it via Messages, Mail, AirDrop, or any other sharing method — great for sending to coaches or family members.

Deleting a golfer permanently removes the golfer profile and all of their tournament entries, including associated travel plans and expenses. You'll be asked to confirm before anything is deleted. Only the data owner can delete a golfer — shared participants with read/write access cannot.

Only if you invite them through Cloud Sharing. When you share your workspace, the other person can see all golfer profiles. Read & Write participants can edit golfers, tournaments, entries, and all other data.

Yes, as long as you have Read & Write permission. The new golfer will be added to the shared workspace and visible to all participants. The subscription limit is based on the workspace owner's plan — if the owner has Premium, any participant can add unlimited golfers.

Courses

A course is a reusable golf course record with a full address, phone number, website, time zone, and GPS coordinates. Once you add a course, you can link it to any number of tournaments. The app uses that data to power weather forecasts, timezone-accurate dates, travel maps, and driving time estimates.

Go to the Support Data section and tap the add button, or create one inline when setting up a tournament. Type the course name, tap Lookup Course, and the app searches Apple Maps to auto-fill the address, phone, website, time zone, and coordinates. Select from the results, verify the details and ensure everything is complete and accurate, and save.

Many features depend on accurate course data. Weather forecasts need the location and time zone. The travel map needs GPS coordinates. Timezone-aware date displays need the course's time zone. Using the Lookup function ensures all of this is filled in correctly.

Yes. Courses are shared across tournaments — add it once and select it whenever that venue hosts an event.

Tournaments

Each tournament captures:

• Name (required) and Type (required) — Junior, NCAA, Amateur, or Professional

• Tour — The organizing body (AJGA, D1, D2, D3, USGA, etc.)

• Course — Links to a course record for location-aware features

• Registration dates — When registration opens and the entry deadline

• Tournament dates — Start date, end date, and when practice booking opens

• Details — Estimated yardage, number of rounds, number of holes

• Website and Notes

Tournaments can include a schedule of events beyond the rounds themselves — things like a welcome reception, team dinner, pro-am, or awards ceremony. Each event has a name, type, date/time, venue, and can be marked as required so you don't overlook it.

The free tier allows 2 tournaments. A Premium subscription unlocks unlimited tournaments.

Yes. The tournament list has a Map view that plots every tournament with a linked course on an interactive map, giving you a geographic view of your schedule.

Only if there are no entries associated with it. Remove all entries first, then delete the tournament. This prevents accidental loss of entry data, travel plans, and expenses.

Entries (Tournament Entries)

An entry connects a golfer to a tournament. It tracks the golfer's participation status, practice round details, registration fee, travel plans, support team, and total costs — everything involved in attending that event.

Entries progress through a defined lifecycle:

• Considering — You're looking at this tournament but haven't committed

• Registered — Entry fee paid, registration submitted

• Accepted — The tournament has accepted the golfer's entry

• Played — The tournament is complete

• Withdrawn — The golfer has pulled out (can be set from any active status)

The status bar on each entry shows valid transitions so you always know what's next.

You can record the fee in any currency. If the tournament is in a different country, enter the fee in the local currency and the app converts it to your home currency using current exchange rates. The original amount and currency are always preserved.

Toggle on the practice round option to set a practice date (defaults to the day before the tournament starts) and optionally a tee time. The Player Dashboard uses this to show your next practice round.

The app detects date conflicts and warns you, listing the conflicting tournaments. You can still save the entry if the overlap is intentional, but you won't miss it by accident.

Travel Planning

Each tournament entry can have one or more travel plans. A travel plan acts as a container for your trip logistics — flights, accommodations, and car rentals — including associated costs.

Three types: Flights (airline, flight number, seat, airports, times), Accommodations (hotel/rental/friends & family, check-in/check-out, cancellation deadline), and Car Rentals (rental company, vehicle type, pickup/dropoff locations and times). You can enter a cost associated with each item.

NCAA classified tournaments automatically will assume the player doesn’t need a travel plan and that it’s taken care of by the school. You can still add support persons with their own travel plans to track costs or logistics related to going to watch your kids compete.

Yes. In addition to the golfer's travel plan, support persons (parents, coaches, caddies) can have separate travel plans attached to the same tournament entry, so you can track everyone's logistics, and associated costs, independently.

Expense Tracking & Finances

You can categorize expenses as Caddie, Food, Gas, Parking, Practice Round, or Other on the Travel Plan. Combined with Registration Fees from the Tournament details and Itinerary Item costs (flights, accommodations, car rentals), the app gives you a complete financial picture.

Set your preferred (home) currency in the Settings. When you record an expense, you specify the currency it was paid in. The app fetches exchange rates (via the Frankfurter API) and converts everything to your home currency for consistent reporting.

The Financial Dashboard displays total spend across all tournaments, cost breakdowns by category (flights, accommodation, food, caddie fees, etc.), per-tournament costs, and average cost per tournament — giving you a clear picture of your golf budget.

Anyone that you share your data with and allow Read/Write capability can see the financial information. If someone has Read Only access then they will NOT see any of the financial information, dashboards and fields throughout.

Calendar & Weather

Yes. All tournament and travel times are timezone-aware based on the golf course's location. If you're in New York planning a tournament in Arizona, the times display in Arizona's local timezone.

No more calculating time zones so that your calendar adjusts correctly when you travel to the tournament location. Enter exact time for the event or tee time and it will maintain it’s time as you travel. (This is why the full course information including time zone is so important).

The app pulls weather forecasts from Apple's WeatherKit based on the golf course's location. You'll see multi-day forecasts leading up to and during tournament dates, displayed in your preferred temperature unit (Fahrenheit or Celsius) on the Player Dashboard. Weather will show up 10 days ahead of the tournament date and will indicate practice round and tournament days.

Data Sharing

Cloud Sharing lets you share your entire in play: Golf Edition workspace with another person — such as a spouse or co-parent— so you can both view and manage the same golfers, tournaments, entries, and travel plans in real time. It's powered by iCloud, so there's nothing extra to set up or sign into.

Go to Settings > Shared Data and tap Add/Manage Share. This opens the standard iCloud sharing screen where you can invite someone via Messages, Mail, or a link. The person you invite will need their own iCloud account and a copy of the app installed.

When you invite someone, you can choose between two levels of access:

• Read & Write — The other person can view all data and make changes, including adding entries, editing travel plans, and updating tournament details.

• Read Only — The other person can see everything but cannot make changes. Read-only participants also cannot view financial data such as expenses and cost summaries, keeping your budget private.

Sharing permissions can be changed after the initial share. Back in Settings, select Add/Manage Share and choose the person you wish to update, and make the change.

The person who originally created the workspace is always the owner. Only the owner can invite or remove participants, export and import data, and manage the share. Participants work within the owner's data — they don't create a separate copy.

Yes. Changes made by either person sync automatically through iCloud. When one person adds a tournament entry or updates a travel plan, the other person will see the update shortly after, on any of their devices.

Yes. The owner can invite multiple participants through the same sharing screen, each with their own permission level.

• If you're the owner: Go to Settings > Shared Data > Add/Manage Share, then remove participants or stop sharing entirely. The other person will lose access to the shared data immediately, but your data remains untouched.

• If you're a participant: Go to Settings > Shared Data and tap Leave Share. You'll lose access to the shared data immediately, but the owner's data is unaffected. You can be re-invited later.

Both users need an iCloud account with iCloud Drive enabled, an internet connection for the initial share setup, and a copy of the app installed. After setup, data syncs in the background whenever a connection is available.

Troubleshooting

First, make sure both devices are signed in to the same Apple ID and have iCloud enabled in Settings → [Your Name] → iCloud. Also confirm that the in play: Golf Edition toggle is enabled in your iCloud app list. If issues persist, try toggling iCloud off and back on, or restart the app.

We'd love to hear from you. Email us at support@inplay-golf.com with as much detail as possible — including your device model, iOS version, and what you were doing when the issue occurred for bug reports.

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