Privacy Policy & Terms of Use

1. What we collect

When you sign up or use FerdaCup, we collect:

• Account info: email address, display name, password (hashed — we never store it in plain text).
• Golf data you submit: rounds, hole-by-hole scores, courses played, photos you optionally attach to rounds, captions, comments, likes.
• Tournament data: the tournaments you join, your role (player, commissioner), invite codes you’ve used.
• Technical info: basic logs (IP address, browser type, timestamps) for security and debugging.
• Email verification codes: short-lived 6-digit codes sent to verify your email or reset your password.

We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has signed up, contact us and we’ll remove the account.

2. How we use it

We use your information to:

• Run your account and the tournaments you’re in.
• Calculate handicaps, scoring, and leaderboards.
• Send transactional emails (verification, password reset, occasional service notices).
• Display your rounds, comments, and likes to other players in your tournaments and friend graph.
• Improve the platform and fix bugs.

We do not sell your data. We don’t run ads. We don’t share your information with third parties except as needed to operate the service (see §4) or as required by law.

3. Who can see your data

• Other players in your tournaments can see your display name, rounds you post, comments, and likes.
• Your “feed” peers (people you share at least one tournament with) can see rounds you post, including casual rounds.
• Commissioners of your tournaments can see administrative data about your participation (status, rounds, handicap inputs).
• Site admins (currently the owner, Ben Witham) have full access for support and moderation.
• The public cannot see your account or rounds. FerdaCup is invite-gated.

4. Service providers

We use a small set of third-party services to run FerdaCup:

• Vercel — application hosting.
• Neon — PostgreSQL database hosting.
• Resend — transactional email delivery (verification + password reset).
• golfcourseapi.com — public golf course data lookup.

These providers process data on our behalf under their own privacy practices.

5. Cookies & sessions

We use a session cookie to keep you logged in. We don’t use third-party tracking or advertising cookies.

6. Data retention

We keep your account and round history for as long as your account exists. If you want your account deleted, email the owner (see §11) and we’ll remove it within a reasonable timeframe. Some data may persist in backups for a short period after deletion.

We may retain anonymized or aggregated data (e.g., total rounds posted) indefinitely.

7. Security

We take reasonable steps to protect your data — passwords are hashed, traffic is encrypted in transit (HTTPS), and access to production systems is limited. That said, no online service is 100% secure. You use FerdaCup at your own risk.

If you suspect your account has been compromised, change your password and email the owner.

8. Your responsibilities

By using FerdaCup, you agree:

• You’re at least 13 years old.
• The information you submit is accurate (especially scores — sandbagging or fake rounds may result in account suspension at a commissioner’s or admin’s discretion).
• You won’t upload illegal, harassing, defamatory, or infringing content (including in photos, captions, or comments).
• You won’t try to break, scrape, or abuse the platform.
• You won’t share your account with others or use someone else’s account.
• Content you upload is yours to upload — by uploading, you grant FerdaCup a non-exclusive license to display it within the platform to other authorized users.

We may suspend or remove accounts that violate these terms.

9. No warranty

FerdaCup is provided “as is,” without any warranty, express or implied. This is a hobby project. Scores, handicap calculations, leaderboards, points, and playoff results are best-effort and may contain bugs or errors. Don’t bet your livelihood on them.

We don’t guarantee uptime, data preservation, or that any particular feature will continue to exist. We may change, pause, or discontinue the service at any time.

10. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, FerdaCup, its owner, and its contributors are not liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of the site — including lost rounds, miscalculated handicaps, disputed tournament results, leaked data, or anything else. Your sole remedy if you’re unhappy is to stop using the service.

11. Contact

Questions, data deletion requests, or complaints:

Ben Witham — benwitham501@gmail.com

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be announced via the site or by email. Continued use after a change means you accept the new terms.