Your golf record,
owned by you

Start here

Ten minutes, free, and you only do it once.

You play golf. You keep score. Somebody signs your card. Fairway Ledger doesn't change any of that — it changes what happens to the card afterwards. Instead of a bin, a club computer or an app's database, the round is saved to a profile that belongs to you.

That profile is a Universal Profile, and it comes first. Fairway Ledger isn't a separate account you sign up for — it's a scorecard app you add to a profile you already own. So the order is:

1. Create your Universal Profile — free, a couple of minutes, yours for good.
2. Add the Fairway Ledger scorecard to it and connect it.
3. Get the person you play with to do the same, so your rounds can be signed off.

Then you play, and every round records to your own profile. The next two sections cover all of it; everything after that is explanation you can read later.

Creating your profile

About five minutes. Free. Do it at home, not on the first tee.

1. Open our profile and tap Sign Up

   Go to @fairwayledger #1819 — that's us. If you don't have a profile yet you'll see Log In and Sign Up; tap Sign Up.

   It takes you to Universal Profiles, where you install the app and create your profile. Free, and published by Universal Everything.

   Do this on your phone. You'll be scoring on a course, so that's where the profile needs to live. On a computer you'll be offered a browser extension instead — that works, but you'd still need your profile on your phone to play, so start there.

   

   

2. Create the profile

   Install the app from the store button you're shown, then follow the setup. You'll pick a name and a picture. That's your golfing identity — what your playing partner sees when they mark your card, and what appears on every round you record.

   You'll also be shown an address, with arrows to cycle through alternatives. The last four characters of whichever one you take become the tag shown after your name — the #1213 in @golfman #1213. Names can be changed later and two people can pick the same one; the tag can't and won't. It's how anyone tells one profile from another, including when you go looking for ours.

   Cycle until you find one you like the look of, then commit. After that it's fixed.

   

   Choose the name you want on the record. A round permanently records the profile name you had on the day you played. You can rename any time and future rounds carry the new name, but past rounds keep the old one. If you'd rather your real name sat on your golf legacy, set it now.

3. Save your recovery details

   When the app offers them, write them down and put them somewhere safe. This is the step you can't come back to.

   This profile will hold your entire golf record. Treat it the way you'd treat the key to your locker, not a password for a shopping site.

Adding the app

Your profile has a Grid — think of it as the home screen for your profile.

4. Clone the scorecard to your own Grid

   Go back to @fairwayledger #1819 — the profile you started from — and scroll to the scorecard app on its Grid. Copy it across to your profile.

   It now lives on your Grid, which is where your rounds, your rating and your history will appear.

   You can play from our Grid without doing this, but your own record won't build up anywhere you can see it. Clone it.

   If you ever need to find us again, search Fairway Ledger and check the tag — #1819. Those four characters come from the address and never change, even if a profile is renamed, so they're the reliable way to tell profiles apart.

   

   

   

5. Connect your profile

   Open the scorecard from your Grid and you'll see a grey circle at the top of the panel, beside the Fairway Ledger name. Tap it. It turns green, and your scorecard loads.

   You only do this once. The app can't reach your profile until you allow it, which is the same permission model as everything else here — nothing happens to your profile without you saying so.

   

6. Get your regular partner set up

   Send them the profile link and this guide. They tap Sign Up and they're away — a round only becomes verified when both players sign off from their own profiles, so the person you play with most weeks needs one too.

   This is the step most likely to catch people out. Much easier to sort out over a beer than standing on the first tee.

Transactions and confirmations

You'll be asked to approve things. Here's what that is and what it costs.

You've just met one — cloning the app asked you to confirm before anything was added to your profile. A transaction is simply a write to the network, and you'll see a prompt every time one happens: cloning the app, signing off a card, and saving a round. Scoring holes, writing notes and taking photos write nothing and prompt for nothing.

It costs nothing. Writing to a network normally carries a fee, and elsewhere you'd hold currency to pay it. You don't here — the confirmation screen names who's covering it, and it isn't you. No cryptocurrency to buy, no balance to top up, no card to enter, ever.

It takes a few seconds.

Playing a round

Same as scoring on paper, with two extra taps at the end.

6. Start the round

   Open Fairway Ledger from your Grid. Choose the course, the tee you're playing, and the format — stroke or stableford.

   

   Course not listed? Use Card Capture. Photograph the printed scorecard, check the holes, pars and stroke indexes the app has read off it, correct anything wrong, and confirm. The course is then available for everyone.

7. Add your playing partner, if you have one

   The app gives you a six-character code. Read it out, or tap Share invite to send it. On their phone they open Fairway Ledger, tap Join partner's round and enter it — and you're both in the same round.

   Playing on your own? Skip this. The round still records — it just won't carry a partner's signature, so it won't count toward your rating.

   

8. Score as you play

   Hole by hole, exactly as you would on a card — except you enter both scores, yours and your partner's, and they do the same on their phone. When the two versions agree, the hole is locked in. When they don't, you're told immediately and can sort it out on the spot rather than arguing on the 18th.

   Each score box starts on the hole's par as a placeholder, shown dimmed. Tap it — or the plus or minus — to enter a real score. Until you do, nothing has been recorded for that hole, even though a number is sitting there. A par you actually made still needs the tap.

   

   

   If you pick up. That's normal golf and it's recorded honestly as NR — no return. The round is still saved as a permanent record. But it won't count toward your Fairway Rating, because a rating needs a complete score for every hole. If the rating matters to you that day, hole out.

9. Write a note, if the hole deserves one

   Open Notes / Motivators on any hole and write what happened — the club you hit, where you missed, what you'd do differently. There are tags for the common things, and a line at the bottom to steady you before the next tee.

   Notes are the part you'll be glad of in a year. A row of numbers tells you what you shot; a note tells you why.

   You choose whether they're published. At the end of the round you're shown your notes and asked. Publish them and they're saved with the round permanently, where anyone who opens it can read them. Decline and they're discarded.

   Your notes are your own account of the round. Your playing partner signs off your scores — not your notes.

   

10. Add a photo, if you want one

    Before you finish, seal one picture to the round. It's saved with the record permanently.

    Photos are public — anyone with the link can see them. Fine for a fairway shot; think about it before you seal a picture of other people.

11. Agree the card and save

    You're shown your partner's finished card — their total and every hole — and asked to confirm it. Read it properly; this is the moment you're vouching for their round, and they're doing the same for yours. Tap Confirm & sign.

    Once you've both signed, each of you saves your own copy. You'll get a confirmation prompt from your profile — approve it, and that's the round recorded.

    Check it's appeared on your profile before you leave. If it hasn't, it hasn't saved.

    

Where to find your rounds

Two places: inside the app, and on your profile itself.

Open Fairway Ledger from your Grid and you'll find Round History — every round you've recorded, most recent first, with the course, the date, your score and who you played with. A round that was signed off carries an Attested badge, and your current rating sits above the list.

Each round is also held by your profile itself, whether or not the app is open. Your profile lists them under a tab labelled NFT's — that's just what it's called there. Open one and you'll see the round as a card: the score, the course, the date, and both players' names.

A round played with a partner produces a card each — yours on your profile, theirs on theirs. Neither of you depends on the other keeping it.

Every round and certificate has its own link. Send it and anyone can open it and check it themselves — no account, nothing to install. That's what makes a screenshot of your best round worth something.

Your Fairway Rating

Worked out for you, from rounds somebody else signed.

An automated agent called markerboss watches the rounds you've had verified and issues your Fairway Rating. You never enter a score into it and you can't influence it. Neither can we — it reads the same signed rounds anybody else can read.

It takes three verified rounds on a rated course. Before that you'll see a certificate on your profile reading 1 of 3, then 2 of 3, so you always know where you are. On the third, the rating itself appears.

What it is

A number derived from how you actually played, on courses whose difficulty is published, witnessed by the people you played with. It travels with you, and anyone can check it.

What it isn't

It is not an official handicap and doesn't replace one. It's structurally informed by published handicapping methodology, but no golf association issues it or recognises it. If your club gives you an official handicap, keep it — this sits alongside, not instead.

Why it works this way

Where your rounds live, and why it isn't with us.

A round recorded in a normal golf app goes into that company's database. They hold it, they can change it, and if they close down or sell to somebody else you find out what your record was really worth. We wanted to tell you your rounds are yours and have it be a fact rather than a promise — and there's only one way to do that: don't hold them ourselves.

So they go onto a Universal Profile — a profile you create and control, and that we have no ability to close or edit. It lives on a network called LUKSO: a shared public record that lots of computers keep a copy of, so no single company owns it or can switch it off. Most such networks were built for moving money and feel like it. LUKSO was built around profiles, which is why setting one up feels like signing up for an app and why there's no currency for you to buy.

The sign-off is the other half. That signature comes from each player's profile and can't be produced by anyone else or added later — so neither of you can quietly improve a score once it's signed, and neither can we.

The trade-off is the password. There isn't one, so there's no company to email when you're locked out. You're given recovery details at setup; save them. If you don't, and you lose your phone, nobody can get the profile back for you.

What it doesn't do

Three limits worth knowing before you start, so none of them is a surprise.

Not every course can be rated

A rating calculation needs a course's published difficulty ratings. Plenty of courses don't print them on the card, and we won't invent them — so rounds there are recorded and verified like any other, but they don't move your rating. You'll be told at the time, not after.

Picked-up holes don't count toward the rating

The round is still yours and still permanent. It just can't be rated without a full score.

A solo round can't be verified

You can play and record on your own, and the round is permanent like any other. But verifying needs a second person with their own profile to sign it — that isn't a restriction we added, it's the entire basis on which a verified record means anything. A solo round carries no partner's signature, so it doesn't count toward your rating.

Questions people ask

Do I need to buy cryptocurrency?

No. Not to create a profile, not to record a round, not at any point.

What does it cost?

Nothing, for golfers. Clubs running organised competitions will pay for that.

What if I lose my phone?

Your profile is on the network, not the phone, so you restore it on a new device using the recovery details from setup. If you didn't save them, nobody can recover it for you.

Is this an official handicap?

No, and it doesn't claim to be. It sits alongside one, not instead of it.

Can I hide a bad round?

You choose which rounds you record. Once a round is signed by both players and saved, it stands — that's what makes the good ones worth having.

If something looks wrong

I saved the round but it isn't on my profile

Then it didn't save — check before you leave the course, while it's easy to redo. Tell us either way; the scorecard itself is recoverable.

I've played three rounds and there's no rating

Check whether the course was rated and whether anyone picked up. Either explains it, and neither loses your rounds.

My partner's round saved but mine didn't

Each player saves their own copy, so one can succeed while the other doesn't. Tell us — yours can be recovered.

I can't find the app

Search Fairway Ledger, open the profile tagged #1819, and clone the scorecard app from its Grid again.