Howdy speedgolf family! You’re reading This Week in Speedgolf.
Hemingway said “write drunk; edit sober”. I prefer writing caffeinated and editing in a mild panic because I promised I’d be done by 4pm and it’s 3:46 and my wife says it’s time to go.
Here’s what’s happening in speedgolf this week.
Ville Heinonen & Kathy Leppard victorious in what Hogan calls “the future of speedgolf”
Ville Heinonen and Kathy Leppard won the 2026 Speedgolf Irish Open at Castlebar Golf Club, where Rob Hogan once again turned his home event into speedgolf’s most interesting laboratory.
This year’s experiment was simple on the scoreboard and chaotic on the course: time is the only thing that matters, but a birdie lets you hit from the front tees, a par from the white tees, and bogey or worse from the tips. (I know where I’d be playing most of the day!)
The results
Men’s division
| Place | Player | Nation | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ville Heinonen | Finland | 36:17 |
| 2 | James Hardy | Great Britain | 37:48 |
| 3 | Riley Davie | Australia | 38:07 |
| 4 | Will Robson | Great Britain | 38:09 |
| 5 | Rob Hogan | Ireland | 38:27 |
| 6 | Lauri Alakuijala | Finland | 40:10 |
| 7 | Rob Lester | Ireland | 56:38 |
| 8 | Bob Vietas | United States | 57:42 |
Women’s division
| Place | Player | Nation | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kathy Leppard | Great Britain | 46:58 |
| 2 | Britta Uschkamp | Germany | 53:13 |
Junior division
| Place | Player | Nation | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maurice Lyons | Ireland | 62:16 |
Rob says, “We have a hit! This is the future of speedgolf.”
🎥 WATCH: Rob Hogan recaps the Irish Open format experiment
The future of speedgolf?
I love Rob Hogan and will defend him for almost anything, including calling a five-player event the Indoor World Championships.
But I do not agree that this is the future of speedgolf.
Rob is onto something when he says elite speedgolfers are getting so fast that the players at the top of the leaderboard are often separated by only a few seconds. And when that happens, golf score stops being one half of the equation and starts becoming the only thing that matters.
That is Rob’s frustration. He wants time to matter more. I can get on board with that.
But eliminating strokes altogether is not the answer.
The moment that burned this into my brain came on the 18th hole. I watched a speedgolfer chunk a bunker shot, finally escape the bunker, not rake, then field-hockey putt three or four times until the ball finally went in the hole.
My inner Steve Vancil was rolling his eyes. That is not the kind of golf I like to watch. And I know I’m not the only one.
If you want time to carry more weight, you can just make it carry more weight. How about 30 seconds per stroke instead of 60?
That would tilt the balance toward speed without turning the sport into field hockey. It would reward the player who is brave enough to push the pace, but maybe… just maybe… wouldn’t cause the traditional golfer to swipe up to the next video in their feed.
Ville read the assignment
Ville Heinonen was your 18 hole champion. That’s awesome. I love seeing him on the podium. And he deserved the win because he read the assignment better than everybody else.
He played with one club.
If strokes don’t count, one club is the obviously correct strategy. We’ve all tested one-club speedgolf at some point. It is at least five minutes faster than carrying four clubs over 18 holes. Some people say it is closer to eight.
Now ask the actual scoring question:
- How many birdies do you have to make at Castlebar, which is not exactly a pitch-and-putt, to overcome five minutes of time savings? You only gain ~100 yards of golf distance (which, by the way, you still have to run.)
- Scratch golfers average roughly two birdies per round. And that is when they are not hoofing it around a hilly Irish golf course with their heart rate somewhere near “please notify my next of kin.”
You are not making enough birdies to matter.
So Ville did the rational thing. He played with one club. And that’s how you win in this format.
Will Robson is becoming a problem
No, I’m not talking about how jealous I am of his luxurious locks of hair.
Will Robson played Castlebar in 38:09 while actually trying to score. He was -2 with four holes to play!
If you’re looking ahead to November, this has to raise your eyebrows a little bit.
Will closed the 2025 season with a respectable but distant fourth at the U.S. Open last year. Then he won the British Pairs with James Hardy. Now he goes to Ireland, plays proper golf in a format that was not designed to reward proper golf, and still finishes two seconds behind Riley Davie and only 21 seconds behind Hardy.
That’s a warning shot if I’ve ever heard one.
Will Robson looks like a top-10 Worlds threat, and possibly top five if things break his way. He also looks like somebody who could beat Carl Palmberg this week in Sweden, which is not a sentence I would have written even a week ago.
Kathy, Britta, and the Castlebar spirit
I love seeing Kathy Leppard succeed because she is one of the great speedgolf ambassadors. And with Kathy, it’s all about attitude.
Kathy and Britta Uschkamp are both higher-handicap golfers. They both played from the tips most of the day. They were both willing to try something weird. And they didn’t complain. Unlike me, they were not publicly petitioning Rob to return to last year’s “double bogey or worse” standard for the tips.
I stand by what I said, but I respect their courage.
Kathy reported the same thing I saw last summer: Rob and Castlebar were perfect hosts, the event had true speedgolf community spirit, and there was a sizable prize for the women’s champion.
That matters too.
It would be easy to turn this whole story into “Rob Hogan finally said something Adam disagrees with”. But that would miss the point. Speedgolf needs people like Rob who are willing to test formats in public. It needs events like Castlebar, where a small but strong field can try something that might be brilliant, flawed, ridiculous, or all three before breakfast.
And that’s before we mention the time trial, which really does seem to have juice…
The Irish Open Time Trial — now 50% safer!
Many of you will remember the spectacle that was the 2025 Irish Open Mass Start Time Trial. Five golfers played four holes. First to finish was the winner. I went into the line of fire to film Luke Willett winning, while running serpentine to avoid balls coming from behind.
This year, a much-needed adjustment: the game reset after each hole; slowest player was eliminated; repeat until there’s one winner.
🔥 WATCH: Riley Davie vs. James Hardy in the elimination time-trial final
Kathy said the one-hole par-3 racing was epic to watch and play. She also had a logical safety suggestion that I’d never considered: for novice golfers, create a line short of the green where players whose tee shots do not reach the line must pick up and advance, so everyone is chipping instead of potentially thinning one into somebody’s skull.
🏁 WATCH: Kathy Leppard wins a hole in the par-3 challenge
See? This is why Kathy should be on committees and I should be allowed to make jokes about them.
Where I land
So here is where I land:
- Rob is right that speedgolf needs more watchable formats.
- Rob is right that time-only scoring is easy for a viewing audience to understand.
- Rob is right that the sport should experiment before it gets too precious about tradition.
- But if golf becomes something players merely survive on the way to the next sprint, we have solved the wrong problem.
- The future of speedgolf should be faster.
- It should be more watchable.
- It should absolutely have room for Rob Hogan’s particular brand of Irish madness.
- But the golf still has to count.
The Scandinavian Open is happening as you read this
The Scandinavian Open Speedgolf is underway at LinksGolf Oland, and if the Irish Open was the format laboratory, Sweden is the serious competitive exam.
Kathy checked in from the course with the kind of weather-and-equipment report I live for:
It’s hot here (not as hot as France tho!) so we may all melt into the beautiful Swedish landscape.
She had planned to carry four clubs, including driver, but the driver has apparently been fired by the board of directors.
The reason: links-style bunkers and punishing rough.
So now it is three clubs, plus a bag mostly serving as emergency ball storage.
That tells me two things. First, this course may be more interesting than a raw scorecard will show.
Second, if we get low speedgolf scores on a par 74 with that setup, they will deserve massive respect.
Where are the results, Speedgolf USA?
An astute reader emailed me this week asking where to find the Oregon Speedgolf Open results.
Which is flattering, I guess.
But also: she had to email me.
That is evidence of our sport’s relative immaturity. In a mature sport, results live somewhere obvious. You do not have to know a guy who knows a guy who took a photo of a handwritten leaderboard.
The good news is that I am now helping with the ISGA World Rankings and World Records committee.
I hate committees, but I think this one matters.
If we want better rankings, cleaner records, and easier storytelling, we need better results infrastructure. I am happy to be part of the solution here, and readers can expect more updates soon.
New Socratic Speedgolf Coach: Around the Green
I’m really pleased that my nerdy exploration of speedgolf math has resonated with readers as much as it has. I’m especially grateful to everyone who has sent questions, pushback, and their own rules of thumb from years of actually playing this sport. The newest guide is live:
🧠 Socratic Speedgolf Coach: Around the Green
The Socratic format has been around for thousands of years because it works. Ask a better question, get a better answer, then discover three more questions hiding underneath it.
What should the Coach teach next?
Getting closer
The flights are long. The budget is short.
The stories are waiting.
Help fix the one part of Worlds coverage Speedgolf Baby hasn’t solved yet: being at Worlds.
This Week in Speedgolf Media
📣 Luke Willett brings speedgolf to a very loud London club Airhorns. A swanky golf club. Luke hitting a ridiculous 6-iron chip through the rough, around a bunker, and onto the green. I am not saying every speedgolf event needs airhorns, but I am saying I did not hate this.
👧 Speedgolf Temecula: What if golf were the game your kids couldn’t wait to play? That’s the whole youth-speedgolf pitch in one sentence.
😂 The speedgolf hater meme of the week “We got paired with a speedgolfer and he said ‘see ya.’”
💍 Rip It & Run: My Wife Tried Speedgolf Daniel and his wife attempt nine holes of alternate-shot speedgolf in 40 minutes, which is exactly the kind of marital stress test this sport was invented to provide. Favorite lines include “I think we should start again” and “I have to stop swearing.” Relatable.
Upcoming Speedgolf
Find your next speedgolf tournament or meetup on Speedgolf Directory.
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Jun 26 — Scandinavian Open Speedgolf
LinksGolf Öland · Grönhögen, Kalmar County
A big-swing Scandinavian showcase where wild links land, heavy wind, and a headline prize pool give the event instant gravity. -
Jul 3 — French Speedgolf Open
Golf International de Roissy · Roissy-en-France
One of Europe’s more established national opens, pairing Paris access with a real championship feel and a deep recent history. Sign up » -
Jul 11 — Kentucky Speedgolf Open
GlenOaks Golf & Country Club · Prospect, KY
A two-day GlenOaks showdown for players who want one of the toughest, most established tests on the U.S. speedgolf circuit. Sign up » -
Jul 12 — Hope - Torslanda Links Speedgolf Open
Torslanda Links · Göteborg, Vastra Gotaland
A coastal Gothenburg stop that pairs city-links character with a welcoming format, giving Sweden’s west coast a distinct speedgolf date of its own. Sign up » -
Jul 12 — Wellington Oostende Speedgolf
Wellington Golf Oostende · Oostende, West Flanders
A coastal 9-hole sprint on a former hippodrome, where sea air, short turf, and Belgian tour energy make for a very different kind of round. Sign up » -
Jul 24 — 10th U.S. Speedgolf Open
Temecula Creek Golf Club · Temecula, CA
A chance to play the flagship championship of American Speedgolf in a setting that still feels welcoming, fun, and unmistakably Southern California. Sign up »
What’d I miss?
Anything I should’ve mentioned but didn’t? Anything coming up you want to see highlighted?
Hit reply and let me know. I read every message.
Adam
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