“What’s the catch?” That’s the question Alfonso Martinez hears most often when he tells fellow golfers about GolfN’s rewards program — right before he tells them about the time he won a golf trip to We-Ko-Pa Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. A longtime member of the app’s community, Martinez has spent two years converting skeptical buddies into believers, one redeemed prize at a time. This is the story that convinced him. For good.
.016 percent.
That was Martinez’s shot at winning a golf weekend at We-Ko-Pa Resort, one of Arizona’s most decorated desert layouts. He put in 40 entries out of roughly 144,000. Then his number hit. The Maryland golfer, who splits his time between the family restaurant business and the insurance world, had already tried and missed the chance to play We-Ko-Pa once before — this time, there was no flight home with tight connections to catch, and no course left unplayed.
Courtesy of GolfN, the rewards-driven app that’s quietly rewriting what it means to be a loyal golfer, Martinez enjoyed his version of the perfect golf weekend.
Since its launch, GolfN has rewarded members and let them redeem points they accrue by playing golf rounds with the GolfN mobile app engaged – with or without its dynamic GPS yardage and digital caddie mode. Now, those users can earn points with a wide variety of golf activities that can be redeemed in GolfN’s Pro Shop, which showcases more than 380 items from 28 top-tier golf vendors.
Early Adopter
Martinez isn’t a newcomer to the GolfN community — he’s been embedded in it almost since the beginning. “I’ve been in their Discord since I feel like they started, two years ago,” he said, describing how the app has evolved from a promising beta into something he now leans on every time he plays. He still keeps a rival GPS app on his phone too, mostly because his regular foursome hasn’t fully made the switch yet. But he’s been converting them one round at a time — including his brother-in-law, who recently started funneling his own points toward a giveaway for a new set of irons. “You’re going to golf regardless of what app you use,” Martinez tells his buddies, “so why not earn your points?”
That question sits at the heart of what makes GolfN different. Traditional GPS and performance-tracking apps give golfers data. GolfN gives them something back.
With GolfN, Winning Is Real. And Frequent.
For a lot of golfers encountering the sweepstakes system for the first time, the instinct is skepticism. Martinez religiously tells golfers searching for “the catch” in the GolfN app’s ecosystem, there simply isn’t one. He’s collected polos, gear, and — most memorably — the We-Ko-Pa trip which he won with extremely long odds. “You can win with the littlest chance,” he said, “or you could put all your eggs in one basket, which I did once and didn’t win. But you can definitely win.”
That authenticity is exactly what GolfN is banking on. “What we consistently hear from users is this sense of surprise and delight — people winning something or redeeming points for an experience they never thought was within reach. Maybe it’s a new set of wedges, a driver, or even a trip,” said GolfN CEO Jared Phillips. “Those moments change how someone relates to the game. It makes it more accessible, more attainable. What resonates with me personally is helping the everyday golfer get closer to the game they love.”
The Desert Delivers
Martinez had actually been to the Scottsdale area once before, on an East Coast winter-golf pilgrimage that included stops at Quintero, Boulders Resort, and Grayhawk. We-Ko-Pa was originally on that itinerary too, but a tight flight schedule and an unplanned detour to Troon North scratched it from the list. So when Martinez’s number came up in the GolfN sweepstakes, the timing felt almost poetic.
He and a friend played both We-Ko-Pa courses — Saguaro and Cholla — back to back. “Cholla is tough, man, that’s a tough, tight course,” Martinez said, “and Saguaro was a little more open. They’re both challenging, but I’m glad we were able to play both.”
Not content to stop at 36, the pair added a round of night golf at Grass Clippings, a Scottsdale institution known for its floodlit fairways and late-night tee sheet. “We got a 9 p.m. tee time, which was midnight my time, and it was so busy, and it was a great time,” Martinez said. Add in a standout dinner at the resort’s Ember restaurant — “one of the best dinners I’ve had in a long time,” by his own admission as a self-described foodie — and the trip checked every box a golf getaway is supposed to check: great courses, great food, great company, and triple-digit desert heat that, unlike Maryland’s, didn’t come with the humidity.
GolfN Gives Back to Golfers
The We-Ko-Pa trip is a headline story, but it’s one entry in a long and growing list of prizes GolfN has put in front of its members. Golfers on the platform have secured a nine-day golf trip to Northern Ireland, a L.A.B. Golf putter-fitting excursion to Oregon, an expenses-paid trip to Carlsbad, California for a full-bag Cobra Golf custom fitting, and a custom Bettinardi putter set — with new offers arriving regularly from GolfN’s expanding roster of Points Exchange partners.
That’s on top of the platform’s everyday utility. As the golf community’s first true rewards app, GolfN lets members earn points simply by playing rounds with the app engaged, whether or not they’re using its GPS yardage and digital caddie features. Those points can then be redeemed for merchandise from some of the sport’s most respected names, including L.A.B. Golf, Miura, Cobra Golf, Bettinardi Golf, Srixon, and Cleveland Golf. Even non-round activity counts — range sessions, simulator time, retail visits, even mini-golf outings can be logged and rewarded, part of what makes the app feel less like a tracker and more like a running tab on your golfing lifestyle.
For Martinez, the appeal isn’t just the redemption catalog — it’s the sense of community that comes with it. He points to a moment a few years ago, after a close friend and longtime golfing buddy passed away, when the GolfN team quietly tracked down his address and sent a gift card to a local course, unprompted. “That was awesome of them,” he said. “It’s a team, it’s just all good people. I’m loyal as hell to them, whatever they need.”
What’s Next
Martinez has no plans to slow down. He’s chasing new courses regularly — he estimates he’s played around 120 — and he’s become a fixture in GolfN’s Discord and Instagram community, posting from courses and cheering on friends as they log their own rounds. “Just keep using it, keep playing, keep supporting, however I can,” he said. “The app just keeps improving, and I hope they keep killing it.”
To that pointy, the app’s new Daily Grind feature opens up a whole new world of rewards. This function allows users to check into golf’s first true rewards app at golf-related businesses and locations — in addition to the golf course — to earn reward points in an inclusive, accessible way that fits their lifestyle and schedule.
“By bringing the Daily Grind into the GolfN app ecosystem, we’re building this universe that rewards you for almost every way you engage with golf — whether that’s a golf course, a simulator business, driving range, par-3 course, or even something more casual. You can check in, have your golf-centric activity logged, and earn rewards more frequently. I think once people see how easy it is to earn points for wedges, putters, drivers, irons, and other things, just for doing golf-related things, people will want to start using the app essentially everywhere,” Phillips said.
For a growing number of golfers like Martinez, the game hasn’t changed — but the way it pays them back has. And with sweepstakes as varied as international golf trips and custom putter builds still rotating through the app, the next big win could be just a few rounds — and a few points — away.
