Privacy Policy
Last updated: April 5, 2023
Thank you for visiting this site, which is operated by The Professional Golfers Association of American (together with our affiliated companies, "PGA", “we” or “us”). Your privacy is important to us. As such, we provide this privacy policy ("Privacy Policy") explaining our online information practices and the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used by this service. "Users" are persons that use the Services.
Please take the time to read the full Privacy Policy. You agree to the data collection, use, disclosure and storage practices described in this Privacy Policy when you use any of our Services (as described below), including when you access any content or videos. This Privacy Policy only applies to the websites, apps and other services (each a “Service”) where a link to this Privacy Policy is posted by us. It does not apply to any other product or service provided by the PGA or any third party if no such link exists.
Please see Section IV. Cookies and Tracking Technologies for our Cookie Policy.
Please see our California Notice for specific California rights.
Overview - Categories and Sources of Information
We collect personal information from Users of our Service when it is voluntarily provided by you, such as your name and email address (see “Information We Collect” below). We use such information to contact you directly and other purposes described in “How We Use the Information” and “Information Sharing and Disclosure” below.
We automatically collect browsing information from Users of our Service and from third parties with whom we work, such as information about your browsing activities and information about the device you use to access the Service (see “Information We Collect” below). We use this information to customize the Service for you and other purposes described in “How We Use the Information” and “Information Sharing and Disclosure” below.
This information is collected to provide, manage, analyze and improve the features and functions available on or through this Service and other services, for marketing purposes and for the PGA’s and its affiliates’ internal business purposes.
Depending on where you reside you may have rights such as the right to know, access, delete, correct, and control certain uses of your information, including opting out of any sales of your personal information (see “User Rights - Data Access and Opt-Out” below).
We will not use or share your information with anyone except as described in this Privacy Policy or with your consent.
I. Information We Collect
1. Information You Provide To Us.
With some Services, you can register, order products, enter contests, vote in polls or otherwise express an opinion, subscribe to one of our services such as our online newsletters or alerts, participate in golfing activities, connect with other people or services or participate in one of our online forums or communities. In the course of these various offerings, we often seek to collect from you various forms of information, such as: name, address, e-mail address, telephone number and other personal information.
If payment details are required, such as credit card information when making a purchase through the Services, such information will be collected directly by our service provider and not by the PGA. Our service providers are required by the PGA to only use the payment details for purposes of that transaction with you. In certain circumstances, PGA may take credit card information directly from you, in those circumstances, PGA secures the information as required by law.
2. Information That is Passively or Automatically Collected.
We, and our "Partners" who include for example third party service providers, broadcast partners, other golf organizations, advertisers, advertising networks and platforms, agencies, and distribution partners may use automated means to collect various types of Information about you or your device used to access our Services. A representative, non-exhaustive list of the types of automatically collected information may include: network or Internet protocol address and type of browser you are using (e.g., Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer), the type of operating system you are using, (e.g., Microsoft Windows or Mac OS), the name of your Internet service provider (e.g., Comcast, Verizon or AT&T) and domains used by such providers, mobile network, device identifiers (such as an Apple IDFA or an Android Advertising ID), device settings, device attributes, browser settings, the web pages of the Services you have visited, Services visited before and after you visit a Service, the type of handheld or mobile device used to view the Service (e.g., iOS, Android), location information, and the content and advertisements you have accessed, seen, forwarded and/or clicked on. Please see our Section titled “Cookies, and Other User and Ad-Targeting Technologies” for more information about how the foregoing Information may be collected and used.
3. Geo-location Information.
If you are accessing a Service from a mobile device or through a mobile application, you may be asked to share your geo-location information with us so we can customize your experience on our Services or on other Services. You may also choose to provide your location, such as when searching for a golf course or services in a particular area or customizing the Service. If you agree to such collection you will be able to turn off such data collection at any time by accessing the privacy settings of your mobile device and/or through the settings in the applicable mobile application. Please note that by turning off this data collection, some of the services like golf course searches will not function properly.
4. Information Collected By and From Social Media Services and Other Third Party Platforms.
You may also be able to engage with our Services through social media services or other third-party platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube including through third-party social media plug-ins, integrations and applications. When you engage with our content on or through social media services or other third-party platforms, plug-ins, integrations or applications, you may allow us to have access to certain Information in your profile and your interaction with our content. This may include your name, e-mail address, photo, gender, birthday, location, an ID associated with the applicable third party platform or social media account user files, like photos and videos, your list of friends or connections, people you follow and/or who follow you, or your posts or "likes." For a description on how social media services and other third-party platforms, plug-ins, integrations or applications handle your information, please refer to their respective privacy policies and terms of use, which may permit you to modify your privacy settings. To adjust privacy settings in YouTube, please visit the Google Support Page.
II. How We Use the Information
We, along with our Partners, may use the Information to:
- Provide and communicate with you about the Services or your account with us,
- fulfill your requests regarding the Services, including without limitation requests for newsletters and notifications,
- respond to your inquiries,
- communicate with you about other products, programs or services that we believe may be of interest to you,
- enforce the legal terms (including without limitation our policies and Terms of Service) that govern your use of our Services, and/or for the purposes for which you provided the Information,
- provide technical support for the Services,
- prevent fraud or potentially illegal activities (including, without limitation, copyright infringement) on or through the Services,
- protect the safety of our Users,
- customize or personalize ads, offers and content made available to you based on your visits to and/or usage of the Services or other online or mobile websites, applications, platforms or services, and analyze the performance of those ads, offers and content, as well as your interaction with them, or
- perform analysis regarding how you use the Services or any part thereof.
We or a Partner may use "cookies" or similar technologies to associate certain of the Information with a unique identifier that then associates the Information with your device or browser. For information about how these technologies work and how we may use them, please go to Section IV, titled “Cookies, and Other User and Ad-Targeting Technologies.”
Sometimes, we may associate cookies with the Information, including de-identified, "hashed," or anonymous versions of Information you have provided (such as during registration), in order to send ads and offers based on your presumed interests or demographic information. We may combine any of the Information we collect, for any of the above purposes, and may sometimes enhance the Information with other information that we obtain from third party sources. Please also be aware that if you choose to submit information or content for publication (e.g., a letter to our editors, comments sent to our television personalities, a posting to a blog or a discussion board, or a video), we may publish that Information and content, along with other Information about you (such as your name, screen name or location). Likewise, if you register and create a profile with our Service, the screen name you select as well as other content you submit to your profile (e.g., photos, comments, video, reviews) will be displayed publicly on the Service, is searchable, can be found by third parties and may be reused and redistributed by us in our sole discretion.
III. Information Sharing and Disclosure
We may disclose the Information as follows:
- To service providers or Partners that we have engaged to perform business-related functions on our behalf. This may include service providers that: (a) conduct research and analytics; (b) create content; (c) provide customer, technical or operational support; (d) conduct or support marketing (such as email or advertising platforms); (e) fulfill orders and user requests; (f) process payments; (g) host our Services, forums and online communities; (h) administer contests; (i) maintain databases; (j) send or support online or mobile advertising; and (k) otherwise support our Services.
- In response to legal process, for example, in response to a court order or a subpoena, a law enforcement or government agency's request or similar request.
- With third parties in order to investigate, prevent, or take action (in our sole discretion) regarding potentially illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to any person, us, or the Services, or violations of our policies, our Terms of Service or the law, to verify or enforce compliance with the policies governing our Services.
- We may transfer some or all of your Information if we, or one of our business units, undergoes a business transition, like a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all or part of our assets, or if a substantial portion of our or of a business unit’s assets is sold or merged in this way.
- We may share the Information with companies and Services affiliated with PGA, so they can provide, improve and communicate with you about their own products and Services. Please note that the Services covered by this Privacy Policy may offer content (e.g., contests, sweepstakes, promotions, games, applications, or social network integrations) that is sponsored by or co-branded with identified third parties. By virtue of these relationships, the third parties may obtain information from their visitors. We have no control over these third parties' use of this information, which is subject to their own privacy policies.
IV. Cookies and Tracking Technologies
We may use cookies and other technologies both to provide our Services to you and to advertise to you. We also may work with Partners to help them advertise to you when you visit other websites or mobile applications, and to help them perform user analytics. These technologies may also be used to analyze how our Users interact with advertising on our Services and elsewhere, and more generally, to learn more about our Users and what services or offers you might prefer to receive. We describe some of these technologies below.
Cookies. To enhance your online experience, we and our Partners may use "cookies", “web beacons” or other tracking technologies. Cookies are text files placed in your device's browser to store your preferences. We use cookies or other tracking technologies to understand Service and Internet usage and to improve or customize the products, content, offerings, services or advertisements on our Services. For example, we may use cookies to personalize your experience at our Services (e.g., to recognize you by name when you return to a Service), save your password in password-protected areas, and enable you to use shopping carts on our Services. We also may use cookies or other tracking technologies to help us offer you products, content, offerings or services that may be of interest to you and to deliver relevant advertising when you visit this Service, or when you visit other websites or applications. We or a third-party platform with whom we work may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser to enable you to receive customized content, offers, services or advertisements on our Services or other sites. The cookies may be associated with de-identified demographic or other data linked to or derived from data you voluntarily have submitted to us (e.g., your email address) that we may share with a service provider solely in hashed, non-human readable form.
We, our third-party service providers, advertisers, advertising networks and platforms, agencies, or our Partners also may use cookies or other tracking technologies to manage and measure the performance of advertisements displayed on or delivered by or through the Services. This also helps us, our service providers and Partners provide more relevant advertising.
Analytics. We may use Google Analytics, which is a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”) and similar services to collect certain information relating to your use of the Service. Such services may use cookies to help the Service analyze how users use the Service. You can find out more about how Google uses data when you visit our Website by visiting “How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps”, (located at www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/).
Syncing Cookies and Identifiers. We may work with our Partners (for instance, third party ad platforms) to synchronize unique, anonymous identifiers (such as those associated with cookies) in order to match our Partners' uniquely coded user identifiers to our own. We may do this, for instance, to enhance data points about a particular unique browser or device, and thus enable us or others to send ads that are more relevant, match Users to their likely product interests, or better synchronize, cap, or optimize advertising.
Web Beacons. We and our Partners may also use "web beacons" or clear GIFs, or similar technologies, which are small pieces of code placed on a Service or in an email, to monitor the behavior and collect data about the visitors viewing a Service or email. For example, web beacons may be used to count the users who visit a web page or to deliver a cookie to the browser of a visitor viewing that Service. Web beacons may also be used to provide information on the effectiveness of our email campaigns (e.g., open rates, clicks, forwards, etc.).
Mobile Device Identifiers. In connection with any mobile app that we offer as part of the Services, we may collect Information such as mobile identifiers (e.g., IDFAs and Android Advertising IDs), and Information connected to how mobile devices interact with our Services and those using our Services. We may use this technology to deliver or help our Partners deliver certain advertising through mobile applications and browsers based on information associated with your mobile device. If you'd like to opt out from having ads tailored to you in this way on your mobile device, please follow the instructions in the "Your Ad Choices" section below.
By visiting the Service, whether as a registered user or otherwise, you have the ability to choose how we use cookies and tracking technologies by visiting our cookie banner and making your selections. Please understand that your choices are browser specific and you must make your choices on each browser and device that you use. Our unaffiliated Partners and third parties may themselves set and access their own tracking technologies when you visit our Services and they may have access to information about you and your online activities over time and across different websites or applications when you use the Service. Their use of such tracking technologies is not in our control and is subject to their own privacy policies.
Your Ad Choices
Advertising enables us to provide the rich content for which the Services are known, and to provide much of this content free of cost to our Users. Thus, we strive to provide you with ads that are relevant to you and for products you may want.
However, we also offer you choices with regard to interest-based ads. To learn more about interest-based ads and the choices available to you, please visit the Digital Advertising Alliance (the "DAA") at the DAA consumer choice Service. To the extent data is collected on this Service for interest-based advertising, we will adhere to the DAA's principles applicable to interest-based ads.
The tools provided on the DAA opt-out page are provided by third-parties, not us. We do not control or operate these tools or the choices that advertisers and others provide through these tools. When using a mobile application you may receive tailored in-application advertisements. Depending on your device, you may be able to reset your mobile device's advertising identifier at any time by accessing the privacy settings on your mobile device. In addition, each operating system, iOS for Apple phones, Android for Android devices and Windows for Microsoft devices, provides its own instructions on how to prevent the delivery of tailored in-application advertisements.
You may review the support materials and/or the privacy settings for the respective operating systems in order to opt-out of tailored in-application advertisements. For any other devices and/or operating systems, please visit the privacy settings for the applicable device or contact (or review the applicable privacy web page of) the applicable platform operator.
At this time the Services do not recognize automated browser signals regarding tracking mechanisms, which may include "do not track" instructions.
V. User Rights - Data Access and Opt-Out
1. User Rights.
A. General Rights: We provide you with choices regarding the Information you provide to us.
- Emails - If you have signed up to receive our marketing e-mails and prefer not to receive marketing information from this Service, follow the "unsubscribe" instructions provided on any marketing e-mail you receive from this Service.
- Cookies – You may delete or block cookies and other technologies by following the instructions above.
B. California Rights: California law provides California residents with specific rights regarding their personal information. The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) defines “personal information” as information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, or is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household. Please see our California Privacy Notice for your specific California rights. To exercise your legal rights, please complete the privacy request form.
C. Nevada Rights: Consumers in the State of Nevada have the right to opt out of the sale of personal information processed by us, as defined under Nevada law. To exercise such legal rights, please complete the privacy request form.
D. European Economic Area (EEA) and UK Data Subject Rights. If you are a resident of the EEA and UK, you have the following rights:
- Right to access – This right allows individuals to obtain confirmation as to whether or not personal data concerning him or her is being process and provide access to such personal data. It also allows individuals to request details of the processing of his or her personal data, including, without limitation, categories of recipients to whom the personal data have been or will be disclosed and purposes of processing.
- Right to rectify – This right allows individuals to rectify any inaccurate personal data about him or her.
- Right to restrict processing – This right allows individuals to block or suppress processing of personal data under certain circumstances.
- Right to be forgotten – This right is also known as the “right to erasure”. It is an individual’s right to have personal data erased or to prevent processing in specific circumstances.
- Right of data portability – This right allows individuals to move, copy or transfer personal data from one place to another in a secure manner without interrupting the integrity and usability of the information.
- Right to object to processing – This right allows individuals to object to certain types of processing, including direct marketing, profiling and providing for purposes of scientific or historical research and statistics.
Additionally, if we rely on consent for the processing of your personal data, you have the right to withdraw it at any time and free of charge. When you do so, this will not affect the lawfulness of the processing before your consent withdrawal.
To exercise your rights under the GDPR, please complete the privacy request form.
If you are situated in the EEA & UK and have any complaints regarding our privacy practices, you have the right to complain to the relevant data protection authorities.
2. Verifying Requests.
Please note that in order for you to assert these rights, we may need to verify your identity to confirm your right to access your Information. This is a security measure to ensure that Information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.
VI. International Transfer
As a United States entity, personal information may be transferred to, and processed, in the United States. We have measures in place to ensure that when your personal information is transferred internationally, it is subject to appropriate safeguards in accordance with data protection laws. Often, these include contractual safeguards such as the Standard Contractual Clauses (“SCCs”) approved by the European Commission to provide a mechanism to transfer personal information from the EU and/or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum (“UK Addendum”) issued by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office to provide a legal mechanism to transfer Personal Data from the UK.
VII. Data Security
We have put in place physical, electronic, and managerial procedures designed to help prevent unauthorized access to or use of the Information we collect through the Service. These safeguards vary based on the sensitivity of the Information that we collect and store.
Although we take appropriate measures to safeguard against unauthorized disclosures of Information, we cannot guarantee you that Information will never be disclosed, altered or destroyed in a manner that is inconsistent with this Privacy Policy.
VIII. How to Contact Us
If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy you may contact us at:
Postal Address:
The Professional Golfers’ Association of America
1916 PGA Parkway
Frisco, Texas 75033
To make a privacy request, please complete the privacy request form.
You may also contact us regarding your privacy at (877) 410-7865.
IX. Third Party Sites
Some of the Services contain links to other services such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other media services and platforms whose information practices may be different than ours. Users should consult these other services' privacy notices as we have no control over information that is submitted to, or collected by, these third parties.
X. Updates and Effective Date
From time to time, we may update this Privacy Policy. We will notify you about material changes by either sending an email message to the email address you most recently provided to us or by prominently posting a notice on our Service. We encourage you to periodically check back and review this Privacy Policy so that you always will know what information we collect, how we use it, and with whom we share it.
Effective date: April 5, 2023
4/12/2023, 8:15:11 PM