Day 1 — I'm Building a Golf App. Here's Why.

by the_chandi_man | 17 May 2026

I've been playing golf for years. I love everything about it — the early morning tee times, the banter with mates, the ones that got away, the occasional birdie that keeps you coming back. Golf has given me some of my best memories, most of them with the same group of friends who've been playing together for longer than I care to admit.

And every single year, without fail, we end up doing the same thing.

Someone starts a WhatsApp group. Someone else builds a spreadsheet. Disagreements break out about what the original terms of the season-long competition actually were. The holiday comp leaderboard gets managed by one poor soul who has to deal with all the drama and the questions. The season-long league that everyone was so excited about in January is being held together with sticky tape by March.

You know exactly what I mean.

So I decided to do something about it.

I'm Building an App

Not because I spotted a gap in a market report. Not because I'm chasing a big exit. Because I play golf, I love golf, and I want something better for me and my mates. If other golfers feel the same way — and I think they do — then maybe this becomes something real.

I'm a former software developer. I know enough to know this is a big undertaking, especially doing it largely on my own. But with the rise of AI development tools, I have the best opportunity I've ever had to actually build it. So here we are.

The app doesn't have a name yet. The working title is Fairway. It might change. What won't change is what it's for.

Amateur golfers. Playing with their friends. For the love of the game.

What It Will Do

At its core, Fairway solves the problems every amateur golfer with a social game has faced:

Proper scoring. No paper, no arguments. Everyone enters their own score hole by hole on their phone. Gross score and Stableford, right there, updating in real time as you play.

Competitions that actually work. The golf holiday abroad. The season-long league. The Ryder Cup format on a golf holiday with 20 mates. Set up your competition properly — formats, handicaps, points structures, drop scores, live leaderboards. All of it.

A social feed for your golf life. Think Strava, but for golf. See what your friends have been playing, their results, photos from the course. A feed that actually matters to you, private to your friend group.

That's the core of it. There's more planned — coaching integration, a bucket list of courses you want to play, challenges — but I'm starting with what matters most and building from there.

What I Built Today

Every journey starts somewhere. Today it started with a blank screen and a lot of decisions.

Here's what actually got done on Day 1:

• Full product specification written — the vision, the features, the data models, the rules for how competitions work, how handicaps are managed, how courses get verified
• Technology stack decided — the app will be built in .NET MAUI for iOS and Android, Blazor for the web admin interface, and ASP.NET Core for the backend API. All C#, all one ecosystem
• Solution created in Visual Studio with five projects: the mobile app, the web interface, the API, the core business logic, and the infrastructure layer
• All NuGet packages installed
• First C# classes written — the domain models that describe a golfer, a golf course, a hole, a round, a score, a competition, a friend group. The building blocks of everything

It doesn't look like much yet from the outside. But the foundation is in. The architecture is right. And that matters more at this stage than anything you can see on a screen.

Why I'm Doing This in Public

I could build this quietly and launch when it's ready. But where's the fun in that?

I want people to follow this journey. I want golfers to feel like this is being built for them, because it is. I'm not a VC-backed startup with a product team. I'm an amateur golfer with a laptop, a passion for the game, and a genuine frustration with WhatsApp group chats and dodgy spreadsheets.

If that resonates with you — follow along.

I'll be posting updates here on the blog, on Instagram @the_chandi_man, on Threads, and on X. The good days and the frustrating ones. The features that come together beautifully and the ones that take three times longer than expected. The whole thing, honestly.

This is being built by a golfer, for golfers. For the love of the game.

See you on the next tee. 🏌️

Follow the journey: Instagram: @the_chandi_man Threads: @the_chandi_man X: @thechandiman1