The golf app for beginners
A beginner’s strokes go to penalties, three putts and doubles, and breaking 100 needs no pars at all: nine bogeys and nine doubles is 99. PinFlag suits a beginner who wants to learn course management from the first round: two taps log a shot, the lie is read from the course, the number shows which target is the safer play before the swing, and a handicap level lens reads the round on a beginner’s scale rather than a tour player’s.
On the course
The one number a beginner needs is which target is safer, and PinFlag shows it before the swing: put the aim on the line over the water and read its cost with the penalty included, put it on the fairway and read that. Nothing has to be understood first; a lower number is a worse spot.
Logging is two taps with the club and lie confirmed in one sheet, it works with no signal, and any tap can be undone. The scorecard scores itself from the shots.
After the round
Score Killers names the three-putts, penalties and doubles that decided the score, which for a beginner is the whole story, and the handicap level lens puts every number on a scale where a bogey is the average. As the rounds build, the same shots show the first real pattern of your game.
The strokes a beginner pays
The published tables price the ordinary mistakes: a tee shot out of bounds costs 2.05 strokes, a three putt from 20 feet 1.12. A 30 handicap gives up about 31 strokes a round on the benchmark model, and one fewer penalty a round is worth more than any swing change.
Breaking 100 on a par 72
| Pars | Bogeys | Doubles | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 9 | 9 | 99 |
Every card that adds up to 99, with doubles stepping up so the trade is visible: each double costs a par and a bogey.
What it costs
Golfer is $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year with every feature included: the number before the swing, Shot Cloud, launch monitor import, two-tap logging, Insights and the benchmark lenses, with a 14-day trial on the annual plan through the App Store. Coach is $80 a month for the coach plus up to ten students and Facility $299 a month for a whole program. The strokes gained, handicap and club distance calculators on pinflag.io are free and need no account.
In PinFlag
Every number PinFlag shows beginners is strokes gained on Mark Broadie’s published PGA TOUR baselines, priced on the same published baselines in the app and on this site and labeled Measured or Estimated so you always know what stands behind it. On the benchmark model a 30 handicap sits 31 strokes a round from the tour average; PinFlag shows which shots.
Frequently asked questions
Which golf app is best for a beginner?
Is strokes gained too advanced for a beginner?
How do I break 100?
What does it cost?
Related
Sources
- Mark Broadie, Columbia Business School (Wikidata entity)
- PGA TOUR statistics
- How PinFlag calculates strokes gained
Every figure on this page is computed from the published baselines, the same ones PinFlag prices your shots with. The scope of the figures: The handicap figures are the site’s benchmark model, Broadie’s published shares applied to the strokes over the tour average; every product claim describes the shipped iPhone app.
Get PinFlag for iPhone
PinFlag shows you this number on the course, for the shot in front of you, before you swing: any target priced with your own dispersion and the lie read from the course map, your real shots drawn on the hole, and two taps to log. Golfer is $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year, with a 14-day trial on the annual plan through the App Store.