Posted on August 18, 2015 by Austin Cox
We’re always looking for different ways to enjoy more time on our paddle boards. SUP Surfing is of course surfing on your paddle board, SUP Yoga is practicing a yoga flow on a paddle board and now we have SUP Golfing which is exactly what it sounds like, golfing on iSUPs (inflatable Standup Paddle Boards). We pumped up a couple Megalodons, put on our collared shirts and cracked a couple cold ones for our first round of iSUP Golf. In the rest of the article we’ll explain the game, necessities and how you can start your own round.
iSUP Golf as we like to call it is a version of the common side game called ‘closest to the pin’ but in our case, the floating rectangle. The objective is to get your ball inside the “pin” and/or the closest to the pin than your opponent. You’ll need at least three people for things to run smoothly; 1 person will serve as the water caddy paddling around and scooping up the balls as well as being the official for calling the closest to the pin and you’ll need at least 2 more players to compete against one another.
Once you break off into your teams each player has 10 shots per round to get them in or around the pin, when the first player is done the opponent will quickly shoot their 10 balls. Depending on the location and what the conditions are like, the golf balls can move with the current or wind and can skew the proximity of both players’ balls. To remove any discrepancy due to the wind/current moving the ball we recommend that both players fire off their 10 balls around the same time. It is upon the water caddy to tally the amount of balls in or around the pin and take note to which player has the number of balls in the pin or closest to it. You can continue to shoot from the same position or move further or closer to the pin and the winner is the person with the most balls in or closest to the pin after the desired amount of holes.
You don’t need very much to get a game of SUP Golfing started and if you have a paddle board you’ll be able to start playing for under $100. The most important thing is having an iSUP and if you already have a board then you’re pretty much there. We used our 15 ft. SUP but a normal 1 person paddle board will work just fine. Normal golf balls will just sink to the bottom so you’ll need to get ones that float which we bought online or typically golf shops will have them in stock too. Though it is possible to just hit off of the actual iSUP we do recommend you get a golf mat. Like we mentioned earlier the wind and current can play a major factor so you’ll need to get an anchor(s) to keep both you and the hole stationed. You’ll need a floating “pin” and you can go the expensive way and get an actual floating golfing pin or you can visit any home supply store and construct a larger rectangular pin which makes it more fun and easier to shoot at. Last but not least is getting one more person to play as water caddy/official. This is a very important job as they are in charge of calling the game and most importantly picking up all the balls and getting them back to the competitors.
*These are just the bare essentials for a typical game of iSUP Golf but you can add more elements to it if you’d like.
This was our first attempt at the game and we’re already planning the first SUP Golfing Tournament. Here is a quick fun video we made from that day. It was such a blast that we’ll be making this a regular occurrence which we’ll be posting to our Meetup account, sign up and get updated with more exciting paddle boarding events.
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