Terms of Service

Scratch Shack is a booking platform. We connect golfers with independent instructors and handle scheduling, payment, and messaging between them.

We do not teach golf. Instructors on this platform are independent professionals, not our employees, agents, or partners. They set their own rates, choose their own availability, and are solely responsible for the instruction they provide, their qualifications and certifications, their insurance, and their compliance with any rules of the facility where they teach.

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account. We ask for your date of birth when you sign up to confirm this.

You're responsible for everything that happens under your account, including keeping your password to yourself. Tell us promptly if you think someone else has access to it.

Under-18s don't get accounts. A parent or legal guardian books on their own account and marks the lesson as being for a child, giving the child's first name and age so the instructor can prepare appropriately.

When you book a lesson for a minor, you confirm that:

• you are that child's parent or legal guardian, or have their guardian's permission to arrange the lesson;
• you accept these terms — including the assumption of risk in section 9 — on the child's behalf as well as your own;
• you've told the instructor about any injury, condition, or circumstance affecting what the child can safely do.

The booking stays in your name. You are the account holder, the payer, and the person we contact about it — a child never receives email from us and never has a login. Arrangements for supervision or attendance during the lesson are between you and the instructor.

When you book a lesson you are entering an agreement directly with the instructor. We collect payment on their behalf and hold it until the lesson is marked complete, at which point the instructor is paid out minus our platform fee and payment processing costs.

Prices are set by instructors and shown before you pay. Card payments are processed by Stripe — we never see or store your card number. See our Privacy Policy for what we do handle.

Some instructors sell lesson packages: a number of sessions bought up front at a bundled price. Package credits are tied to the instructor you bought them from, cannot be transferred to another instructor or person, expire after the period shown at purchase (one year unless stated otherwise), and have no cash value.

If your instructor cancels, you get everything back automatically — a card payment is refunded in full, and a lesson credit is returned to your balance. This applies no matter how close to the lesson it happens.

If you cancel a lesson paid with a credit, the credit returns to your balance as long as you cancel at least 24 hours before the start time. Cancel inside 24 hours and the credit is used up.

If you cancel a lesson paid by card, refunds are not automatic. Email us at scratchshackgolf@gmail.com and we'll review it — we generally refund cancellations made with reasonable notice.

Club and facility lessons are covered by your club's arrangement and can be cancelled free of charge at any time. Your club is shown who cancelled at short notice and may apply its own policy; that's between you and your club.

Not showing up for a lesson counts as a cancellation with no notice.

If you join a club or facility group with an access code, you get access to lesson times reserved for that group's members, and you are not charged by us for booking them. Instead, we record the session — your name, the instructor, the date, and the instructor's rate — and report it to your club, which bills you through your membership account under its own terms.

Access codes are issued by the club and are typically valid for a membership year. A club can rotate its code or remove a member at any time, which ends access to member-only lesson times. If you have upcoming member lessons booked when you are removed, they are cancelled and both you and the instructor are notified.

Instructors apply and are reviewed before their listings go live, either by us or by a facility that sponsors them. Approval is not an endorsement, certification, or background check, and we may decline or revoke it at our discretion.

As an instructor you agree that:

• You are an independent contractor, not an employee. Nothing here creates an employment, partnership, or agency relationship.
• You are responsible for your own taxes, licenses, and insurance. We report payouts to tax authorities where the law requires it.
• Your listings, credentials, and experience are accurate, and you hold any certifications you claim.
• You'll honor booked lessons, or cancel through the platform with as much notice as you can so the student is refunded and told promptly.
• You have the right to teach at the locations you list, including any permission the facility requires.

We deduct a platform fee and payment processing costs from each payout. The current rates are shown in your dashboard before you list.

You keep ownership of what you post — listings, photos, reviews, messages. You give us permission to display and distribute it on the platform for the purpose of running the service.

Lesson listings are screened before publication, and we may remove any content or suspend any account that is misleading, abusive, discriminatory, unsafe, infringing, or being used to take business off the platform to avoid fees. Repeated rejections may end your ability to post.

Reviews must reflect a real lesson you actually took. Don't write reviews for competitors, for yourself, or in exchange for anything.

Golf instruction is physical activity and carries a risk of injury. By booking a lesson you accept that risk. You are responsible for deciding whether you're fit to participate, and for telling your instructor about any injury or condition that affects what you can safely do.

Scratch Shack does not supervise lessons, is not present at them, and is not responsible for anything that happens during one — including injury, lost or damaged equipment, or the conduct of an instructor, another golfer, or a facility.

The platform is provided "as is." We don't promise it will be uninterrupted or error-free, and we don't guarantee any particular improvement in your golf.

To the fullest extent the law allows, our total liability to you for any claim relating to the platform is limited to the amount you paid through Scratch Shack in the 12 months before the claim, and we are not liable for indirect or consequential losses. Some jurisdictions don't allow these limits, in which case they apply to you only as far as they're permitted.

You can stop using Scratch Shack at any time; email us to have your account closed. We may suspend or terminate an account that breaks these terms, that we reasonably believe is being used fraudulently or abusively, or where we're required to.

Closing an account doesn't cancel lessons already booked or erase records we're required to keep, such as payment and tax records.

We may update these terms as the platform changes. The date at the top shows the current version, and continuing to use the platform after an update means you accept it. If a change materially affects you, we'll make a reasonable effort to tell you directly.

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of New Jersey, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules.

Reach us at scratchshackgolf@gmail.com.