Skip to main content
BogeyMap

Trust & safety

Review guidelines

Every review is screened before it publishes. These are the rules we screen against — and the reasons a review gets held or removed.

1. Who can post

You need a BogeyMap account, you must be 18 or older, and accounts are currently available in the United States only. A Pro membership is not required to review — Pro is only relevant to the accredited reviewer program.

2. The one rule that matters most

Play the course before you review it. A review is a first-hand account of a round you actually played. Reviews written from reputation, a range session, a drive-by, a tee-time price, or someone else's report are removed.

3. What a good review contains

  • The date you played, so readers can weigh the conditions you describe.
  • Specifics over adjectives: greens rolling out, bunker sand, fairway lies, tee-box wear, pace on the day, how starters and the pro shop handled you.
  • Honest context for anything unusual — aeration, frost delay, cart-path-only, temporary greens, construction, a shotgun start ahead of you.
  • Value as you experienced it, in your own words.

Write it the way you would tell a friend who is deciding whether to drive two hours tomorrow.

4. What gets a review held or removed

  • Reviews of a round you did not play, or reviews of the wrong course.
  • Personal information about anyone — staff names paired with complaints, phone numbers, addresses, member names, photos of other golfers.
  • Harassment, slurs, threats, or attacks on individuals rather than the golf.
  • Claims we cannot stand behind: guaranteed access for the public at a private club, invented rankings or awards, prices you did not pay, tee-time availability.
  • Undisclosed compensation. If a course, agency, or brand gave you the round, gear, food, lodging, or money, say so in the review.
  • Promotion, affiliate links, spam, or the same text posted across many courses.
  • Complaints that are not about the course — a booking-site dispute, weather, traffic.
  • Anything illegal, or content about anyone under 18 that shouldn't be public.

5. How screening works

Automated first pass

Every submitted review is screened by an automated model against the rules above. Clean reviews publish quickly. Anything doubtful is held as pending for a human on the BogeyMap team. Nothing is published because a model was confident — a human can always overrule it.

Reporting a review

Every published review has a Report control. Tell us which rule it breaks and add detail if you have it. Reports go into the same human queue. We do not tell the reviewer who reported them.

Corrections and takedowns

We edit reviews only to remove personal information; we do not rewrite opinions. If a review is removed, the rating comes out of the course's community average with it. Repeated breaches cost you the ability to review, and can cost you your account.

6. Accredited reviewers

Accredited reviewers are held to the same rules with two additions: field reports must be written from a round played within the last 12 months, and any relationship with the course — comped round, media day, membership, employment — must be disclosed in the report itself. Accreditation can be withdrawn at any time.

7. What we never do

  • Pay for reviews, or accept payment to publish, bury, or edit one.
  • Let a course remove an accurate review it dislikes.
  • Fabricate reviews, ratings, or reviewer accounts.

REVIEWS ARE THE OPINIONS OF INDIVIDUAL GOLFERS ABOUT ONE ROUND ON ONE DAY. THEY ARE NOT BOGEYMAP'S ASSESSMENT, THEY ARE NOT A GUARANTEE OF ACCESS, CONDITIONS, PRICING, OR AVAILABILITY, AND CONDITIONS CHANGE. ALWAYS VERIFY WITH THE COURSE BEFORE YOU TRAVEL.

8. Questions

These guidelines sit alongside our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. If a decision looks wrong to you, contact us and a human will look again.