Two Beers Studios

4sum

Privacy policy

This describes 4sum as it works today. You never need an account — you can create a free one with just an email address if you want to — and your rounds are kept on your device. A handful of optional features use the network — finding courses, maps and course images, the weather, shared rounds and hosted tournaments, and shared course maps — and each one is described below, including exactly what leaves your phone.

Effective 3 October 2026 · applies to 4sum v1.1.1 and the 1.2 update (Record, accounts) for iOS and Android

The short version

  • 4sum asks for location while you are using it, and — only if you use Record — the camera and microphone. Your position stays on your phone except in the three cases listed under Permissions below, each of which you start. Videos you record never leave your phone unless you export them yourself.
  • An account is optional. If you make one, we keep your email address and the name and handle you choose, and nothing else about you. You can delete it in the app or on the web at any time.
  • Your players, courses, rounds and scores are stored on your device. They leave it only if you start or join a shared round or a hosted tournament.
  • 4sum carries no analytics, advertising, or tracking code.
  • 4sum does not move money.

What 4sum stores, and where

4sum keeps everything you enter in your phone’s local app storage: the players in your group, the courses and tees you’ve saved, your rounds and hole-by-hole scores, the games you have running, handicaps you type in, and any Venmo username you choose to save against a player.

Using the location features saves two kinds of coordinates, both locally. Marking a tee or a green saves that point against the course, so the next round you play there starts with it already known. Marking a drive saves the two points it was measured between, in that round, next to the yardage. The live distance-to-green readout and the hole map use your position while they are on screen but record none of it.

4sum does not back up your data or send it to us, except for the shared features described under Network use. If you delete the app, everything stored on the device goes with it.

Permissions

Location, and only while you are using the app. 4sum asks for it the first time you use a feature that needs it — not on launch, and never in the background. It is used for:

  • Marking a drive. Longest Drive measures a tee shot by taking a position at the tee and another where the ball finished, and reporting the yards between them.
  • Distance to the green and the hole map. On a hole whose green has been marked, 4sum shows how far you have left, shows where you are on the hole map, and can move the scorecard on to the next hole as you walk to its tee.
  • Marking a green or tee where you stand.
  • Finding courses near you. Only when you tap “Near me” in course search.

When your position leaves the phone. Only in these three cases, each started by you: a “Near me” course search, which sends it to the course directories listed below; a green or tee you mark where you stand while sharing course maps is on; and the putting position described under Shared course maps.

All of this is optional, and you can score a whole round without location. A drive can always be typed in instead — if there is no permission, no usable fix, or nobody has marked that hole, 4sum asks you for a number rather than refusing to play the game.

Camera and microphone, only for Record. 4sum asks for them the first time you open Record, never before. The camera films your shots; the microphone records their sound, so a video has the strike and the reaction. If you decline the microphone, Record still works and saves silent clips. See Recording your shots below.

4sum does not ask for “always” or background location, and it does not ask for your photo library, contacts, or notifications. (iOS shows a photo-library notice because a library 4sum includes references that API; 4sum never reads or writes your photos.)

Recording your shots

Record films short clips of your shots during a round. Each clip is saved inside 4sum’s own storage on your phone, not in your camera roll, together with what 4sum knows about it: the round, hole, stroke and player, the time, where you stood (if location is on), the moments you tapped “Shot” on your watch, and any labels you add.

Clips and their details are never uploaded to us or anyone else. They leave the phone only when you tap Export, which hands the round’s clips and a scorecard file to your phone’s share sheet, and they go only where you send them. Deleting a clip, its round, or the app deletes the video.

Please ask before you film other people. Your playing partners appear in your clips, and the sound of the group is recorded with them.

Apple Watch

The 4sum watch app shows the score and distances on your wrist. It uses the watch’s own GPS, while the app is open, to show yardages; that position stays on the watch. The watch and the phone talk to each other directly over Apple’s watch connection, not through us. The phone sends the current hole, the players’ scores and the course’s green and hazard points; the watch sends back scores you enter on it and Record’s start, stop and “Shot” taps. Nothing the watch does reaches the network.

Money

4sum does not move money. It works out who owes whom and can hand that amount off to the Venmo app, where you complete the payment yourself. 4sum processes no payments, holds no funds, takes no cut, and is not a financial service of any kind.

A Venmo username you save is stored on your device and is only used to open that person’s Venmo profile when you tap to settle up.

Network use

You can score an entire round with no signal. These are the things that can reach the network. Only the update check happens without you doing something first.

  • Update check. Like most apps built with Expo, 4sum checks for over-the-air app updates on launch. That request goes to Expo’s update service and necessarily reveals your IP address and which version of the app and OS you are running. It does not include your rounds, scores, players or courses.
  • Course search. When you search for a course, the text you typed, and any state filter you chose, is sent to our own course directory (hosted for us by Supabase), to OpenGolfAPI (opengolfapi.org), an open directory of US courses, and to OpenStreetMap’s Overpass service. If what you typed looks like a town or city, it is also sent to OpenStreetMap’s Nominatim service to find where that place is. When you tap “Near me”, your current position is sent to the same three directories in place of the text, so they can return the courses around you. Nothing else about you goes with any of these requests beyond your IP address. The course you add is stored on your device like any other. Course data is © OpenStreetMap contributors via OpenGolfAPI, under the ODbL 1.0 licence.
  • Adding a course OpenStreetMap hasn’t mapped. The course’s own coordinates are sent to Nominatim to look up the town and state it is in.
  • Find greens on the map. When you tap it, the course’s name and approximate location are sent to OpenStreetMap’s Overpass service (and, if the course has no saved location, first to OpenGolfAPI to look one up). The green coordinates that come back are stored on your device. Your own position is not sent. Distances are worked out on the phone. Green data is © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0.
  • Maps. The course and hole maps are drawn by your phone’s own map service: Apple Maps on iOS, Google Maps on Android. Showing a map loads that area from Apple or Google, who receive your IP address and the area being viewed. Your position is drawn on the map by the phone itself. Apple’s and Google’s own privacy policies cover what they do with map requests.
  • Course and hole images. Satellite pictures of a course or hole are loaded from Mapbox. The request carries the course or hole coordinates and your IP address, nothing about you or your round. Imagery © Mapbox © Maxar.
  • Weather on the hole card. When a course has a saved location, 4sum asks the US National Weather Service (weather.gov) for the hourly forecast at that location, so the hole card can show temperature and wind. The request carries the course’s coordinates and your IP address, nothing about you or your round.
  • Shared rounds. If you start a round for other phones to join, or join one with a code, the course, the games, each player’s name and handicap index, and the hole-by-hole scores, putts and contest results are sent to our round database, hosted for us by Supabase, so every phone in the group sees the same card. Anyone with the round’s code can see it. Rounds you keep on one phone never touch this database.
  • Hosted tournaments. If you host or join a hosted tournament, the event name, your team name, the player names you enter, hole-by-hole scores, and any contest results are sent to our tournament database, which is hosted for us by Supabase in Canada, so that the host and the other groups can see a live leaderboard. The leaderboard is visible to anyone who has the event link. There is still no account: you join with a code the host gives you.
  • Shared course maps. There is a switch, on by default, called “Share greens with other players.” While it is on, marking or importing a green or tee coordinate sends the course’s id, name and location, the hole number, that coordinate, its GPS accuracy and the time to our shared course-geo database, also hosted for us by Supabase, so other 4sum players who play the same course receive it too. Entering putts on a hole where your phone has a good GPS fix also sends your position at that moment, rounded to the nearest metre, the same way. None of it carries your name, a score, or anything else about your round. Turn the switch off on the GPS card at any time to stop.
  • Sharing a scorecard or an invite. When you tap Share, 4sum hands the image or text to your phone’s share sheet, and it goes only where you send it.

The anonymous device ID. The first time you use a shared round, a hosted tournament or shared course maps, the app is given a random anonymous ID by our database so it can recognise this phone’s own entries. Unless you create an account, it is not linked to your name, email or phone number, and it is stored in the app. An anonymous ID that has not been used for 90 days and holds nothing (no shared round, tournament seat or map point) is deleted automatically.

Optional account

You can use every free part of 4sum without an account. If you choose to create one, under Settings (the gear on the Play screen) → Account, you enter your email address and we email you a one-time code; there is no password. We then store, in our account database hosted for us by Supabase in Canada:

  • your email address, and when you signed up and last signed in;
  • the display name and handle you choose, both optional and editable;
  • whether you joined as a founding member.

Sign-in codes are sent by our email provider (Zoho Mail, or Amazon Web Services’ email service as we grow). They receive your email address and the message, and nothing else. Creating an account turns this phone’s anonymous device ID (below) into your account’s ID, so the shared rounds and tournaments you already joined stay yours. Your rounds, players and courses still stay on your phone; making an account does not upload them.

We use your email only to sign you in and to answer you if you write to us. We do not send marketing email, and we do not sell or share it.

Analytics and advertising

This version contains no analytics SDK, no crash reporter, no advertising library, and no third-party tracking code. It does not track you across apps or websites, so it does not present an app-tracking permission prompt.

Deleting your data

Your account. Delete it in the app under Settings → Account → Delete account, or without the app at 4sum.twobeersstudios.com/delete-account. Deletion is immediate and removes your email, name, handle, shared rounds you host, your memberships in other shared rounds, and the shared course-map points from your device ID. Your seat on a tournament scorecard stays with the course’s event, no longer linked to you. Our database provider’s backups roll off within 7 days.

Delete individual rounds, players, courses or clips inside the app, or delete the app from your phone to remove everything at once. Everything except shared rounds, hosted tournaments and shared course maps lives only on the device, so that is all it takes. To have your name and scores removed from a shared round or a hosted tournament, email us with the round code or event name and we will delete them. To have your shared green marks or passive samples removed, email us and we will delete the observations tied to your device.

Children

4sum is not directed at children under 13. Accounts are for people 13 and older, and we do not knowingly create one for a younger child; if you believe a child has made one, email us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

This page describes 4sum v1.1.1. When a version sends anything new off the phone, this page will be updated to say exactly what and why before that version ships, and the effective date above will change.

Contact

Two Beers Studios — support@twobeersstudios.com

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