Everything below covers the current version of the CaddieLab Golf app. If your question isn't answered here, email us — a real person reads every message.
CaddieLab is currently in beta. Every premium feature is unlocked and free for beta testers — you will not be charged, and there is no subscription to cancel. If you hit a bug, please email us; bug reports from testers are the fastest way to get something fixed.
You can sign up with an email address and password, or with Sign in with Apple. Signing in with Apple works even if you choose to hide your email address — we never see your real address, and everything in the app still works normally.
The first time you sign in, CaddieLab asks a short set of questions — your goals, how often you play, roughly where your game is, and how you found us. These answers shape your practice recommendations and where your stats start out. Tap an answer to select it, then tap Continue. You can change any of it later in Profile → Edit Profile.
Your bag drives club recommendations and distance tracking, so it's worth doing properly. Go to Profile → Settings → My Golf Bag.
Wedges can be entered either as letters (PW, GW, SW, LW) or as lofts (46° through 64°) — whichever matches how you think about them. The caddie understands both.
The bag builder caps a standard set at 14, matching the Rules of Golf. You can still add individual clubs afterwards if you carry something unusual for practice — the limit is only enforced while building the initial set.
No. Leave them blank and CaddieLab learns your real distances from the shots you track. Entered yardages are used until there's enough of your own data to beat them.
When you start a round you pick a tracking mode. You can play the same course a different way every time — nothing is locked in.
| Mode | What you enter | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | Score per hole | Keeping it simple, or a casual social round |
| Detailed | Score, putts, fairways, greens, penalties | Real stats without slowing down play |
| Shot Tracker Pro | Every shot: club, GPS location, lie, result | Strokes Gained, shot maps, and full analytics |
Strokes Gained and the shot-by-shot maps need Shot Tracker Pro — those calculations are built from individual shot positions, so they can't be derived from a scorecard alone. Basic and Detailed rounds still count toward your handicap, scoring averages, and course records.
Tap Complete Round on the last hole. You'll get a summary with your score, a Game Score breakdown, and caddie notes on what helped and what cost you. Past rounds live under Play → Rounds, where you can open the full scorecard, the shot map, and the round's analytics.
Yes. Open the round from your rounds list and edit the scorecard. Corrected scores flow through to your handicap and stats automatically.
No. Scores are saved to your account hole by hole, not at the end. Sign back in and the round will be waiting where you left off.
Yes — choose 9 holes when you set up the round. Nine-hole rounds are tracked and shown separately, and are excluded from stats that only make sense over 18.
Search by course name on the round setup screen. If your course doesn't appear, tap Ask us to add it at the bottom of the results and send us the name, city, and state. We add requested courses manually, usually within a few days.
CaddieLab needs location access While Using the App for distances to the green, hazard distances, and shot positions. Without it you can still keep score, but distances and shot mapping won't work. Grant it in iOS Settings → CaddieLab → Location.
Greens are big, and the pin moves daily. If you know where today's pin is, drag it on the hole map — that makes your approach distances and Strokes Gained far more accurate. Otherwise CaddieLab uses the middle of the green or a position averaged from other players.
Course data comes from a third-party mapping provider and is occasionally off — most often a tee box in the wrong spot. You can submit a correction from the hole map, and it's reviewed before it goes live for everyone. Email us with the course and hole number if a correction is urgent.
One person creates the group round and shares the 6-character join code. The others tap Join and enter it. You do not need to be friends in the app to play together — the code is enough.
Choose how scoring works when you create the round:
Playing with someone who doesn't have the app? Add them as a guest. Their scores count in the group and on the leaderboard; they just don't get their own account or stats.
Tournaments add tee-time groups, a full leaderboard, and side games. In the tournament lobby, Games & Prizes is where you set up teams, formats (scramble, best ball, match play, skins, stableford), closest-to-the-pin and long-drive contests, and the pot.
CaddieLab does not handle money. Buy-ins, pots, and payouts are calculated and displayed so you know who owes what — no money moves through the app, and no payment details are ever collected. Settle up among yourselves.
Check whether the round was set to designated-scorer mode. In that mode the scorer's card is the official one and individual entries aren't counted. The scorer can be changed mid-round if they leave early or their phone dies.
Yes. Scores are entered once, and every format, team, and payout is calculated from them — so the host can add a side game or fix a team at the turn without anyone re-entering scores.
The Practice tab builds a session from what your rounds say is actually costing you strokes, rather than a generic drill list. Open it, take the session it suggests, and log your results as you go — the next session adapts to what you did.
Swing analysis works best when the video does. A few things matter more than anything else:
If a clip can't be analysed, CaddieLab tells you why — cut off, no swing detected, too shaky — rather than guessing. Re-film and try again.
Swing analysis, the caddie's explanations, and the rules assistant send data to Google's Gemini API for processing. You're asked to consent before any of this runs, and you can review that choice under Settings → AI Features Consent.
It's a coaching aid, not a launch monitor. It grades what is visible in your video against a checklist of swing fundamentals, and it deliberately reports "can't tell from this angle" instead of inventing a grade it can't see. It does not replace a lesson with a real coach.
No. It quotes the actual Rules of Golf and cites the rule number, but it is guidance only — not an official ruling in competition. When it can't find a rule that covers your situation, it says so and tells you to consult a Rules Official rather than guessing.
The score on your home screen is a single 0–100 read on where your game is, anchored to your handicap and weighted toward recent rounds. The radar breaks it into the five parts of the game so you can see which one is dragging.
Strokes Gained measures each shot against what a reference golfer would be expected to score from the same spot. Positive means that shot gained ground; negative means it cost you. You can compare yourself against PGA Tour, Scratch, or a 10-handicap, and every category — off the tee, approach, around the green, putting — is calculated distance by distance, not estimated from your score.
This requires shot-tracked rounds with a pin position recorded. Holes without one are skipped rather than guessed at.
CaddieLab calculates a handicap index from your posted rounds. It is not an official USGA/WHS handicap and can't be used in official competition — it's there so the app can scale advice and net scoring to your level.
Because a number built on three shots would mislead you. Each metric has a minimum sample size, and below it CaddieLab shows nothing rather than a figure that will swing wildly. Keep tracking rounds and they fill in.
Profile → Settings → Edit Profile covers your display name, photo, home course, and handicap. Notification preferences and your golf bag live in the same menu.
You can block any user from their profile, and report posts, comments, or profiles that break the rules. Blocking is immediate and mutual — you disappear from each other's feeds, searches, and friend lists. Manage blocks under Settings → Blocked Users. Reports are reviewed by us, and we remove content and suspend accounts where warranted.
Go to Profile → Settings and scroll to Delete Account at the bottom. You'll be asked to confirm, because it cannot be undone.
Deleting removes your login, your profile, your rounds and shots, your practice sessions and videos, your friends, and your posts. Where you played in a group round or tournament with other people, your entry is replaced with an anonymous placeholder so the other players' scorecards and leaderboards still add up — that placeholder holds no name, email, or data of yours. Course records and hole crowns you held pass to the next best player.
Once deleted, the email address is free to sign up again as a brand-new account with no history.
What we collect and why is set out in full in our Privacy Policy. To request a copy of your data or correct it, email support@caddielabgolf.com.
CaddieLab keeps the videos you analyze (uploaded over Wi-Fi after your results are ready) and your swing data, and uses them to improve its analysis. This is on by default; turn it off at any time under Profile → Settings → Help Improve CaddieLab. Turning it off deletes nothing and doesn't change how the app works for you.
Tap Forgot password on the sign-in screen and we'll email you a reset link. If it doesn't arrive within a few minutes, check your spam folder — and check whether you originally signed up with Apple, in which case there is no password to reset and you should use Sign in with Apple instead.
Yes. Sign in with the same account and everything — rounds, stats, bag, friends — is there. Your data lives with your account, not on the phone.
You must be at least 13 to use CaddieLab. See our Terms of Service.
Keep clips short — one swing, a few seconds. Long or very high-resolution videos take a long time to upload on course Wi-Fi or a weak signal. If it fails repeatedly, try again on a stronger connection, and check the whole swing is in frame.
Force-quit the app and reopen it — swipe up from the bottom of the screen and flick CaddieLab away. Your data is saved on our servers, so nothing is lost. If a screen is reliably broken, email us with the screen name and what you tapped to get there.
Email us the course and date of the round. Stats are recalculated from the underlying shots, so we can usually tell you exactly which entry caused it — and if it's a bug in the calculation, that report is what gets it fixed.
Email support@caddielabgolf.com. Tell us what you expected to happen, what actually happened, and the course and date if it involves a round. We read every message.