maps.golfThe short answer: publish the scorecard as a text table on a page of your website, with par, handicap, and yardage for every hole from every set of tees, plus the course rating and slope for each tee. Keep the PDF or the photo of the printed card as a download if you like it, but don't make it the only version. A text table can be read by golfers on a phone, by Google, and by AI tools. An image can't be read reliably by any of them.
Why the format matters
When we read 568 golf course websites, only about a third had a scorecard we could read on the course's own site, and about half of those were PDFs (the full numbers are in what golf course websites leave out). The rest had no scorecard online, or only a photo of the printed card.
A photo is the weakest option. Search engines and AI tools can't reliably read the numbers in it, so “how long is the back nine at your course” or “what's the slope from the white tees” gets answered from someone else's copy of your card, if at all. On a phone, a golfer has to pinch and zoom. A PDF is better, since its text can usually be read, but it's a separate download, it's awkward on a phone, and old PDFs tend to stay online long after the course re-tees.
What to include
- Every hole, front and back: par, handicap (stroke index), and yardage from each set of tees, with Out, In, and Total rows.
- Every set of tees, named the way the course names them: “Black, Blue, White, Gold, Red”, or “Championship, Member, Forward”. Use the same names on the card, the website, the booking system, and the tee markers.
- Course rating and slope for each tee, men's and women's where both are rated. These are the numbers golfers use to pick a tee and work out their course handicap, and they're often the hardest to find.
- Separate handicaps where they differ, for example a women's handicap row.
- For 27-hole or 36-hole facilities, one table per nine or per course, plus the rating and slope for each combination of nines that you rate.
- A “last updated” date, so a golfer can tell this year's card from one left over after a renovation.
What it looks like
A plain HTML table is all it takes. Holes across the top and tees down the side matches the printed card most golfers know. This sketch shows the layout (fill in your own numbers):
| Hole | 1 | 2 | 3 | … | 9 | Out | Rating / Slope |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Black | yds | yds | yds | … | yds | total | rating / slope |
| White | yds | yds | yds | … | yds | total | rating / slope |
| Red | yds | yds | yds | … | yds | total | rating / slope |
| Par | # | # | # | … | # | total | |
| Handicap | # | # | # | … | # |
Repeat it for the back nine. Most website builders (WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy) have a table block, so this doesn't need a developer. Don't build the table out of an image or a screenshot pasted into the page; it has to be real text you can select with a cursor.
Common mistakes
- Only an image, or only a PDF. Keep the download, add the table.
- An out-of-date card. A renovation, new tees, or a re-rating changes the numbers. Replace the old PDF rather than adding a new one beside it, so there's only one version online.
- Totals that don't add up. Check that each tee's Out and In match the holes, and that the Total matches what you print.
- Tee names that change from place to place. If the card says “Blue” and the booking page says “Member tees”, golfers and search tools can't tell they're the same.
- Rating and slope missing. If you print them on the card, put them on the page.
Where it should live
Give the scorecard its own page (yourcourse.com/scorecard is ideal) and link to it from the main menu and from your “know before you go” page. A dedicated page is easy for golfers to bookmark and for search engines to send people to when someone searches your course name and “scorecard”. There's no special structured data for scorecards, so the table itself is what matters.
A readable scorecard also gets your course into comparisons. The maps.golf course rankings, for example, rank courses by slope and by length using only the numbers on each course's own card. If yours can't be read, you can't be ranked.
Every free course guide on maps.golf/courses shows the scorecard as a text table. If your course has a guide and its scorecard is out of date, send us the current card and we'll update it.