PGA TOUR unofficial API reference

Reverse-engineered field guide to the public browser-facing data services used by pgatour.com. This is an unofficial, best-effort snapshot verified on 2026-09-23. It is not affiliated with or supported by PGA TOUR.

The result is closer to the NHL API reference than it first appears: the site has stable IDs, machine-readable JSON, a GraphQL endpoint, REST endpoints, and a small configuration service. The main difference is that PGA TOUR does not publish a compatibility contract, and several large responses are compressed.

What is included

• 42 complete GraphQL query documents in graphql/
• REST and configuration routes
• 54 convenience functions: 47 return pandas DataFrames; seven return a string, dictionary, or raw JSON
• A raw object-oriented client preserving upstream response structures
• A machine-readable endpoint manifest
• An importable catalog and CSV lookup of 467 PGA TOUR stat IDs
• A live validation report covering 38 useful operations
• 43 offline fixtures and 115 automated tests
• Cross-platform CI for Python 3.9–3.13

See ENDPOINTS.md for the route catalog and variable shapes.

See the expansion roadmap for additional data discovered on the PGA TOUR website, live verification results, and proposed implementation priorities. The first three priorities are implemented; later items remain planned.

Service map

Quick start

Install the repository directly:

pip install git+https://github.com/rubenviolinha/pga-tour-unofficial-api.git

import pga_tour_api as pga

tournament_id = pga.pga_current_tournament("R")
leaderboard = pga.pga_leaderboard(tournament_id)
schedule = pga.pga_schedule(2026, "R")
players = pga.pga_players("R")
sg_total = pga.pga_stats("02675", 2026, "R")

Most functions return normalized pandas DataFrames; the documented return type for each function is in the API reference. For upstream response structures:

from pga_tour_api import PgaApi

api = PgaApi()
raw_leaderboard = api.leaderboard(api.current_tournament())

The native documentation source lives in docs/. GitHub Actions builds and publishes the documentation site through GitHub Pages on every push to main.

Direct GraphQL request

GraphQL calls are JSON POST requests. The browser sends a public frontend key in x-api-key; it is not a user credential, but it can rotate. The example client contains the value observed on the verification date and lets PGA_API_KEY override it.

from pga_tour_api import PgaApi

api = PgaApi()
response = api.graphql(
    "LeaderboardCompressedV3",
    {"leaderboardCompressedV3Id": "R2026030"},
)
leaderboard = api.decompress(
    response["leaderboardCompressedV3"]["payload"]
)

The usual headers are:

Content-Type: application/json
Accept: application/graphql-response+json, application/json
x-api-key: <public frontend key>
x-pgat-platform: web
Origin: https://www.pgatour.com
Referer: https://www.pgatour.com/

Compressed payloads

Operations containing Compressed return a payload string encoded as:

JSON -> gzip -> base64

Decode it in Python with:

import base64, gzip, json

decoded = json.loads(gzip.decompress(base64.b64decode(payload)))

Known compressed operations include leaderboard, current leaders, scorecard, tee times, shot details, odds-to-win, and generic content.

Identifiers

Tournament IDs combine a tour prefix, season, and event code. Examples:

• R2026030 — PGA TOUR, 2026, event 030
• S2026616 — PGA TOUR Champions
• H2026094 — Korn Ferry Tour
• Y2026008 — PGA TOUR Americas

Tour codes:

Player IDs are numeric strings, such as 59095. Stat IDs are strings and may have significant leading zeroes, such as 02675; do not parse them as numbers.

High-value data

The API currently exposes:

• Full and abbreviated live leaderboards
• Hole-by-hole field scoring
• Player scorecards
• Shot-level play-by-play, coordinates, distances, and radar fields when available
• Tee groups and start tees
• Tournament fields, alternates, withdrawals, OWGR, current form, and course fit
• Season schedules, tournament metadata, past results, and weather
• 400+ statistical categories and player rankings
• FedExCup, signature-event, and priority rankings
• Player directory, profiles, biographies, career summaries, results, and 100+ profile stats
• Broadcast coverage, news, highlights, TOURCAST clips, and betting markets when active

HTML fallback

When an API route changes, tournament leaderboard pages remain useful. Their HTML contains:

• script#leaderboard-seo-data — JSON-LD/CSVW leaderboard data
• script#__NEXT_DATA__ — Next.js hydration state with tournament metadata
• A server-rendered leaderboard table

The fallback is less complete than GraphQL but often survives API migrations.

Stability and responsible use

• This is an internal website interface, not a supported public API.
• Cache historical results and avoid polling static data.
• The included client defaults to one request per second and retries only transient failures.
• Respect https://www.pgatour.com/robots.txt, site terms, and data licensing.
• Do not bypass authentication or access controls. This reference covers only data already delivered to ordinary public browser sessions.
• Live odds, coverage, videos, and player tournament status can correctly be empty outside their active window.

License

The project-specific code is released under the MIT License. Third-party material adapted from pgatourPY retains its separate notice in NOTICE.md and the original license text in LICENSES/pgatourPY-MIT.txt. The license covers the software, not PGA TOUR trademarks, website content, or data-redistribution rights.

Provenance

The route inventory was verified against live PGA TOUR responses. The normalized DataFrame layer, query documents, stat catalog, fixtures, and parts of the tests were adapted from the MIT-licensed WalrusQuant/pgatourPY project. See NOTICE.md and LICENSES/pgatourPY-MIT.txt.

Research and attribution references:

• https://github.com/WalrusQuant/pgatourPY
• https://walrusquant.github.io/pgatourPY/reference/
• https://www.pgatour.com/robots.txt
• https://github.com/Zmalski/NHL-API-Reference