Earlier this year, Kurtis Petersons and his business partner, James Daniels, created an innovative cell phone application for golfers.

Since their story appeared in the Sun Journal five months ago, they’ve won accolades, money and a coveted approval for Apple’s iPhone apps list. The mCaddie (for mobile caddie) will go through beta testing for the iPhone and the BlackBerry in January.

Petersons remains an mCaddie shareholder, but he has left the company and taken a position at a hedge fund in Connecticut, a member of the mCaddie team said.

Petersons, a 2001 graduate of Poland Regional High School, was working in hedge-fund accounting in southern Maine when he had his mCaddie dream a year ago. He thought the idea was a good one, but he needed someone with technical expertise to get it off the ground.

He found Daniels, a University of Maine math major, on the social networking site Facebook.

The pair developed an application that turns GPS-equipped cell phones into virtual caddies by offering club suggestions and distance-to-hole or distance-to-hazard information on specific courses. It also serves as a virtual clubhouse where players can book tee times, chat with other golfers and see how their buddies’ play ranks, either by cell phone or on a home computer.

Daniels and four associates have won a second Maine Technology Institute Seed Grant and a Libra Future Fund grant, together worth more than $17,000. They also spoke at the 2008 TechMaine Annual Conference in December.

They hope to have the mCaddie out of beta testing and ready for distribution by spring.

– Lindsay Tice