Golf Fundamentals for Developers

This guide explains the concepts behind the Sportradar Golf API: how professional golf is organized, what happens during a tournament, and how each real-world concept maps to an API feed. Read it first if you are new to golf data; the scenario guides assume the vocabulary defined here.

How Golf Is Structured

Golf data is organized as a strict hierarchy. Each level nests inside the one above, and the chips on the right link to the feed that returns that level's data:

Every entity carries a stable UUID that is the primary identifier across all feeds. See ID Handling for how IDs relate across feeds.

Tours

A tour is identified in URLs by its alias, the golf_tour path parameter. The table below is the canonical list (use it everywhere a tour is named).

Seasons

The Seasons feed lists every available season for every tour, each with an id, year, dates, and a status (scheduled, inprogress, or closed). It is the entry point for almost every workflow: resolve a tour and season here, then use those IDs downstream. The excerpt below is trimmed to two tours:

{
  "tours": [
    {
      "id": "b52068af-28e4-4e91-bdbb-037591b0ff84",
      "alias": "pga",
      "name": "PGA Tour",
      "seasons": [
        { "id": "55827590-93f7-4493-9b4f-83ae86116ef6", "year": 2024, "start_date": "2024-01-04", "end_date": "2024-12-15", "status": "closed" },
        { "id": "e4694c64-017f-432f-b80e-28bcec314ca6", "year": 2026, "start_date": "2026-01-08", "end_date": "2026-12-13", "status": "inprogress" }
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "e97bb87a-6347-40d0-8c8c-3d0f54a41043",
      "alias": "EURO",
      "name": "DP World Tour",
      "seasons": [
        { "id": "15d88d6a-54fd-4dad-b090-73f243189805", "year": 2025, "start_date": "2024-11-21", "end_date": "2025-11-16", "status": "closed" }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Tournaments

A tournament is one event within a season. Its event_type describes the competition format:

Not every value appears in every season: a PGA Tour schedule can go a full year without a standalone match or mix event, so treat those two values as tour- and season-dependent. Read the literal event_type rather than assuming a format. Team and cup events change how rosters, leaderboards, and scoring read; Monitoring Team Events walks through the structures and the integration differences.

How a Golf Tournament Works

A standard tournament is four rounds of 18 holes (event_type of stroke), played Thursday through Sunday. The full field plays the first two rounds; after the cut, a reduced field plays the weekend.

The Cut

Most full-field stroke-play events apply a cut after a set round (usually round 2) to reduce the field for the weekend. The tournament header carries the cut context:

• cut_round: the round after which the cut is applied (for example 2).
• cutline: the final score to par at which the cut falls. The value is a plain integer relative to par, so 6 means +6.
• projected_cutline: the live projected value while the cut round is in progress.

Players who miss the cut are flagged on the leaderboard with status: "CUT" and do not play the remaining rounds. Full definitions of the cut and every status value are on the Tournament Status Workflow page.

Tournament, Round, and Player Status

Status is reported at three levels. This page summarizes them; the Tournament Status Workflow page is the canonical reference with full definitions, transitions, and samples.

• tournament.status: scheduled, created, inprogress, playoff, complete, closed, cancelled. Only closed and cancelled are terminal.
• round.status: scheduled, inprogress, suspended, complete, closed. A suspended round (weather or darkness) resumes later; the tournament stays inprogress throughout.
• player.status (on leaderboard and scorecard rows; absent for active players): CUT (missed cut), WD (withdrawn), MDF (made cut, did not finish), DQ (disqualified), DNS (did not start).

Rounds, Holes, and Scoring

Each round is normally 18 holes. Each hole has a par (the expected number of strokes) and a yardage. A player's score is expressed relative to par.

Scoring Terms

Per-round scoring in the feeds is summarized with counts of eagles, birdies, pars, bogeys, double_bogeys, holes_in_one, and other_scores (anything worse than a double bogey), plus the round score relative to par and total strokes.

Tee Times and Pairings

Players are grouped into pairings with assigned tee times for each round. The Tee Times Per Round feed provides the groupings and start times for a given round, keyed by tournament_id, round_type, and round_number.

Player Statistics

Two feeds expose player performance:

• Player Statistics returns season-level statistics for every player on a tour (a PGA-only feed) with deep metrics like strokes gained, driving accuracy, and greens in regulation.
• Player Profile returns one player's bio plus a per-season statistics block, and works for any tour, so it is the fallback for non-PGA players.

See Retrieving Player Details and Statistics for the full field coverage and the non-PGA workflow.

Course and Tournament Context

The Tournament Summary feed carries the venue and one or more courses, each with a par, yardage, and per-hole detail (number, par, yardage, and sometimes a name). The Tournament Hole Statistics feed adds per-hole scoring averages and difficulty for a played event.

Hole par and yardage reflect the official tournament scorecard and are fixed for the event: the API does not vary a hole's par or yardage from round to round, even though a course can in reality play a different yardage day to day. The rare exception is an event with a distinct setup per round, such as the 2015 U.S. Open at Chambers Bay.

Rankings and Standings

The Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) feed ranks players globally. The ranking is computed over a rolling two-year window, so a player's avg_points reflects recent results, not a single season. Tour-specific standings (for example FedEx Cup points) surface through points and points_rank in the statistics feeds.

IDs and Data Relationships

• Every entity (tour, season, tournament, player, venue, course, round) has a stable UUID; use it as the primary key.
• parent_id on a tournament links recurring editions of the same event across seasons, so you can aggregate a tournament's history.
• A single tournament can belong to more than one tour (co-sanctioned events list multiple entries under seasons). For example, the Masters and The Open Championship appear on both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour schedules; access them from the PGA Tour alias.

For the complete ID model, including how Sportradar IDs (SR_IDs) appear in Push payloads and cross-product contexts, see ID Handling.

Mapping Golf Concepts to API Feeds

Use the full feed names below (matching the API reference) when searching the reference or constructing requests.

Where to Go Next

• New to the API surface: API Basics.
• Building live features: start with the Integration Scenarios landing page.
• Need status semantics: Tournament Status Workflow.