Golf Course Discovery Mobile App UX/UI Design | GolfHoppers

GolfHoppers is a golf companion mobile app built to help golfers discover new courses, track their rounds and turn exploring into visible progress.

The app brings together a map of nearby courses, a real-time play flow, an achievement system and a community of players in one simple experience.

Our goal was to design a mobile app that makes discovering and playing new courses easy and rewarding, while staying simple enough to use one-handed, mid-round.

Golf lacks a single place to discover courses, track rounds and stay motivated to explore beyond your usual spot. Course information is scattered across club-specific sources, and nothing rewards trying somewhere new.

The challenge was to build one app that handles course discovery, real-time play tracking and gamification, without making it complicated for players on the course.

We started with research, competitor analysis and information architecture, then moved into wireframes. At this stage, the map became the primary navigation surface, since discovery is the app's core job, and course status (played, favorited, wishlisted) needed to be readable at a glance.

The check-in and play flow was kept linear (start, track, finish, rate) to minimize on-course friction. Gamification got its own Clubhouse tab so it wouldn't compete with the map and play flows for attention.

The client provided the visual direction upfront, so we tested two layout concepts for the core screens within that framework to find the best hierarchy and information density. The final style uses a green, nature-inspired palette, card-based layouts and a warm, outdoor-friendly icon and illustration set.

Four swipeable screens introduce the app's pillars: discovering courses, collecting achievements and connecting with friends, each with a real in-app preview. New users sign up with basic details or social sign-in and immediately earn their first badge, turning account creation into the start of the achievement system.

The map is the app's discovery engine. Golfers see nearby courses color-coded by status, filter by location or criteria, and open a full course profile with photos, ratings and details, making the jump from "found it" to "let's play" as short as possible.

Players start a round via the Golf Station, check in with a QR code, track play in real time and finish with a rating. Every round feeds straight back into the Clubhouse and the player's timeline.

The Clubhouse is the player's progress hub with achievements, rank, a round timeline and a leaderboard. The community feed lets players share photos, comment on rounds and follow friends' progress, while the profile combines stats, favorites, wishlist, golf bag, posts and settings.

Research & Competitor Analysis

Information Architecture

Wireframes

Moodboards & 2 Layout Concepts

High-Fidelity Mobile App UX/UI Design (~50 Screens)

UI Kit, Illustrations & Logo Lockups

Clickable Prototype

Animations

Since launch, GolfHoppers has given players a single place to discover courses, track their rounds and stay motivated through the Clubhouse and community feed, turning course-hopping from a scattered habit into a game worth coming back to.

A consistent design system with a warm green palette, Inter type scale, a full component library and custom illustrations kept ~50 screens visually consistent without extra design debt. The client was so happy with the design that they extended the partnership into the development phase.