SimplyStroke exists because of a specific, stupid moment that every golfer has had: you reach the green, stand over the ball, and realize you have no idea whether this putt is for four or for five. So you reconstruct the hole backwards, arrive at a number that feels about right, and write it down.
Every golf app we tried wanted to solve a bigger problem than that one. They offered yardages, strokes gained, green slope maps, swing analysis, side games, social feeds, and a subscription. None of them offered the thing we actually needed, which was for the number to still be there when we got to the green.
So it does one job
One giant button. One tap per swing. An undo, because fingers slip. A finished scorecard with the math already done. No account before your first round, no ads, no signal required, and no monthly fee.
That's not minimalism as an aesthetic. It's minimalism as a function: the moment an app asks for a second tap, or a decision, or your attention, it starts losing to the thing it was supposed to replace, which is a pencil.
Free, and not as a trick
SimplyStroke is free. There is no premium tier, no annual renewal, no sensor bundle and no upsell holding your own scorecard hostage.
This isn't generosity, it's arithmetic. Counting to five costs nothing to run.There are no course maps to license, no analytics servers, no hardware to manufacture. An app that only counts can afford to be free — and an app that's free never has to invent a reason for you to pay again next year, which is the reason every other golf app gets more cluttered every single year.
What we'll never do
- Sell your round data. There's nothing to sell it to.
- Put an ad between you and your score.
- Add a feature because a competitor has it. The whole product is the things we left out.
- Charge you a subscription to count to five.
On the ADHD thing
Losing count isn't a discipline problem. Golf quietly asks you to hold a running number in working memory for ten-plus minutes per hole while planning shots, walking, talking and hunting for a ball in the fescue. That's a known and studied cognitive load, and it's measurably harder if you have ADHD.
But SimplyStroke does not treat anything. It is not a medical product and it never will be. It removes one arbitrary memory task from a game that never needed it. That's a small claim, it's a true one, and we'd rather make a small true claim than a big one you can't check.
Questions, bug reports, or a story about the worst count you ever lost: hello@simplystroke.app. Every email gets read.
Who writes this stuff
Everything on this site is written by the SimplyStroke team— the people who build the app. We're golfers who got tired of reconstructing our own scores on the walk to the next tee, and we keep our names off the site because the app should be the interesting part, not us.
What that means in practice: when we make a claim about how ADHD and working memory interact, we cite the research. When we compare ourselves to another app, we link to their pricing page so you can check us. When we don't know something, we say so. Being anonymous is not a licence to be sloppy; if anything it raises the bar, because the writing has to earn the trust that a byline would have borrowed.
Spot something wrong anywhere on this site? Tell usand we'll fix it.