Mario Golf: Super Rush is the seventh main entry in the Mario Golf franchise, developed by Camelot Software Planning (the studio behind every Mario Golf since the original on Nintendo 64 in 1999) and published by Nintendo. Released worldwide on 25 June 2021 for Nintendo Switch, it followed the 2014 3DS title Mario Golf: World Tour by seven years — the longest gap between Mario Golf releases in the series’ history.

Super Rush exists in a different design space from its predecessors. While World Tour was a polished but conservative golf sim with deep Mode B course design and a strong online tournament scene, Super Rush is consciously a multiplayer party-sports title built around real-time simultaneous play. The headline new mode — Speed Golf — has all four players hitting their balls and physically running between shots at the same time. It’s closer to a Mario Kart-style frantic competition than to traditional golf.

The Headline Features

• Speed Golf — the headline new mode. All players play simultaneously, running between shots across a shared course. First to finish the hole at lowest score wins.
• Battle Golf — arena-based 4-player versus mode in a special stadium with 9 holes laid out as battle zones. The most chaotic Mario Golf mode ever shipped.
• Golf Adventure — a full single-player RPG-style campaign with a custom Mii avatar, levelling stats, tournament progression, and boss battles. The first Mario Golf story mode since Mario Golf: Advance Tour (GBA, 2004).
• Standard Golf — the traditional 9 or 18-hole Mario Golf experience for purists who want classic stroke play.
• Special Shots — character-unique super moves that affect the ball physics dramatically (like MTA’s Special Shots, but adapted to golf).
• Special Dashes — each character has a unique sprint move with thematic visual effects when running between shots in Speed Golf.
• Free post-launch DLC — 3 waves of updates added 4 characters (Toadette, Koopa Troopa, Ninji, Shy Guy) and 3 courses (New Donk City, Bowser Highlands, All-Star Summit) over 9 months.

The Mii Rookie

The Golf Adventure narrative casts the player’s custom Mii avatar as a young golfer arriving at Bonny Greens Golf Club, the Mushroom Kingdom’s premier training facility, as a rookie hoping to climb the professional tour. The story unfolds in a series of tournaments at progressively challenging courses, with the Mii gaining experience and stat upgrades along the way.

The Mushroom Kingdom Tour

The campaign’s structure follows the player from low-level club tournaments through a progressive ladder of courses, ultimately culminating at the Royal Course for the championship finale. Each course presents a new biome, new hazards, and a new tournament challenge against AI rivals — including Mario, Peach, Waluigi, and eventually Bowser.

Tournament Progression

• Bonny Greens (Rookie Tier) — the tutorial course. Basic golf fundamentals and shop access.
• Wild Wiggler Course (Intermediate) — hilly course with environmental wiggler hazards. First major tournament.
• Ridgerock Lake — waterside course with shifting wind and tricky water hazards.
• Balmy Dunes — desert course with sandstorms that periodically obscure visibility.
• Bowser Highlands — the volcanic Bowser-themed advanced course with lava hazards (added with DLC update).
• Royal Course — the championship final. The graduation course.

Boss Battles & Rivals

Golf Adventure intersperses standard tournament rounds with boss-battle holes where the player faces unique challenges: King Bob-omb in a defensive mortar exchange, Hammer Bros. in a hazard-laden hole, Chargin’ Chuck in a footrace-style sprint challenge, and ultimately Bowser at the highest course tier. Each boss has unique mechanics that require strategic play rather than raw skill.

Mario Golf: Super Rush builds its mechanics on the same foundation as every Camelot Mario Golf since the N64 original — a power-bar swing system with shot type selection — but layers genre-bending new systems on top.

The Core Loop

• Aim & club selection — the player aims with the stick, picks a club (Driver, Iron 3-9, Wedge, Putter) from their bag, then triggers the swing.
• Power swing — holding A starts the power bar. Release at peak for max power, second press for impact accuracy.
• Spin control — stick directions during impact apply topspin, backspin, or side-spin to curve the ball mid-flight.
• Shot types — Power Shot (max distance), Curve Shot (slice/draw), Approach Shot, Lob Shot. Each tuned for course conditions.

The Run-Between-Shots Layer

Super Rush’s headline innovation is that characters physically run between shots on the course in Speed Golf and Battle Golf modes. Movement has stamina (drained by sprinting, refilled by stamina items), Special Dashes (character-unique sprint moves), and item pickups (slowdown bombs, stamina top-ups). It transforms golf into a frantic real-time mini-sport.

Stamina & Items

Running drains a stamina gauge. Sprinting drains it fast; walking refills slowly. Items found on the course — Mushroom (instant stamina), Star (invincibility + speed), Banana (slowdown trap on rivals) — add a Mario Kart-style strategic layer to the run-between-shots gameplay.

Super Rush’s base shot system descends directly from Camelot’s established Mario Golf formula. The shot library has the depth purists expect plus simpler defaults for casual players.

Standard Shots

Special Shots — The Cinematic Move

Every character has a character-unique Special Shot activated when their special-shot meter is full. The Special Shot deploys an over-the-top cinematic animation and gives the ball a thematic effect (Mario’s fireball trail, Peach’s pink hearts, Bowser’s shell-burst, Pauline’s sparkle burst). They’re visually spectacular and add per-character flavor to high-level matches.

Special Dashes — The Running Equivalent

In Speed Golf, characters also have a Special Dash — a unique sprint animation that triggers when stamina is maxed and the player taps the dash button. Each character’s Special Dash has distinct visual flair: Luigi’s vacuuming dash, Peach’s parasol glide, Bowser’s shell-spin, Yoshi’s tongue-grapple movement.

Special Dashes affect both stamina drain (faster than a normal sprint but uses stamina more efficiently) and the ability to disrupt opponents. Some Dashes have offensive properties — Bowser’s shell-spin can knock other players’ balls off course if they pass through.

Speed Golf is Super Rush’s headline new mode and the feature that defines the game. Instead of taking turns, all four players play simultaneously on a shared course. After hitting their balls, players physically run to their next shot location while opponents do the same. The first player to finish the hole with the lowest combined score (strokes + time bonus) wins.

How It Works

• Simultaneous play — all 4 players tee off at the same time. After their shot, they sprint to the ball’s landing spot.
• Stamina management — sprinting drains stamina; walking refills it. Items refill stamina or give buffs.
• Time penalties — finishing slow adds strokes to your final score. Fast play is rewarded.
• Interaction — you can collide with opponents (slowing them), pick up items they need, and use Special Dashes for offensive movement.
• 9 or 18 holes — standard tournament length, or quick 3-hole sprint variants.

Battle Golf is Super Rush’s competitive arena mode — essentially Speed Golf compressed into a single confined stadium with 9 simultaneously available greens. The first player to sink balls into 3 of the 9 greens wins.

How It Works

• 9 holes in one arena — a single 9-zone stadium with all greens visible at once.
• Race-to-3-claims — first to sink balls into any 3 of the 9 greens wins. Greens you’ve claimed lock out from other players.
• Real-time chaos — all 4 players hitting at the same time, running between shots, blocking each other from green access.
• Special items — the Battle Golf arena has more aggressive item pickups including Banana traps and Bob-omb-style explosives.

The Battle Golf Stadium

The custom Battle Golf Stadium has a unique radial layout with greens arranged in a 3×3 grid — you can attempt any green from any starting position, but elevation changes and obstacles complicate the route. The stadium is the only “course” for Battle Golf; all matches happen in this single venue.

Standard Golf is the traditional turn-based Mario Golf experience for purists who want classic stroke play. Players take turns swinging from tee to green over 9 or 18 holes, scored by total strokes per round.

Standard Golf Modes

• Stroke Play — the classical mode. Lowest total strokes per round wins.
• Match Play — hole-by-hole victory tracking. Whoever wins more holes wins.
• Point Tournament — birdies and eagles award points; final tally wins.
• Online play — all Standard Golf modes are playable online with friends or matchmade opponents.

Standard Golf is the only mode where the camera lingers on each individual swing with full cinematic framing — Speed Golf and Battle Golf compress the swing animation to keep play flowing. It’s the mode for players who want to appreciate Camelot’s craftsmanship in shot-by-shot detail.

Golf Adventure is Super Rush’s single-player story mode, structured as a 15-20 hour RPG-flavored campaign where the player’s custom Mii avatar climbs the Mushroom Kingdom golf tour ladder from amateur rookie to champion. It’s the first Mario Golf story mode since Mario Golf: Advance Tour (GBA, 2004).

How It Works

• Custom Mii avatar — the player chooses their existing Switch Mii or creates a new one specifically for the game. The Mii gains skill, gear, and stats over the campaign.
• Stat system — Power, Stamina, Speed, Control, and Spin stats level up over time via experience-point gains from tournaments.
• Gear shop — Bonny Greens’ clubhouse has a gear shop selling clubs, balls, and outfits that modify stats (golf bag effects, club power bonuses, accuracy buffs).
• Tournament progression — win tournaments at each course to unlock the next-tier event. Each tournament has its own win condition (lowest stroke total, beat the rival, claim X holes).
• Training mini-games — between tournaments, the player completes practice activities at Bonny Greens to grind stats (target practice, putting green, sand-shot drills).
• Boss battles — special tournament-replacement matches against course-themed bosses (King Bob-omb, Hammer Bros., Chargin’ Chuck, Bowser at the finale).

The Course Progression Ladder

Each new course tier introduces a new biome and a new mechanic the Mii must learn:

• Bonny Greens (Tier 1) — the rookie tutorial course. Basic golf fundamentals only.
• Wild Wiggler Course (Tier 2) — hilly course with Wiggler enemies that move along the fairway. Introduces hazard avoidance.
• Ridgerock Lake (Tier 3) — waterside course with strong wind. Introduces wind compensation and water hazard penalties.
• Balmy Dunes (Tier 4) — desert course with periodic sandstorms that drop visibility. Introduces blind-shot strategy.
• Bowser Highlands (DLC Tier 5) — volcanic Bowser course with lava-flow hazards. Added in November 2021 update.
• Royal Course (Championship) — the graduation tournament. The most polished, technical course in the game.

Mario Golf: Super Rush launched with 16 characters (including the player’s custom Mii avatar) and expanded to 20 via three waves of free post-launch DLC adding Toadette, Koopa Troopa, Ninji, and Shy Guy. Each character has distinct stat distributions across Power, Stamina, Speed, Control, and Spin.

Launch Roster (16 Characters)

Mario

All-AroundBalanced

Luigi

SpinBackspin specialist

Peach

ControlHigh accuracy

Daisy

SpeedFastest sprint

Yoshi

StaminaEndurance runner

Bowser

PowerMaximum drive

Bowser Jr.

ControlTrick shots

Wario

PowerHeavy hitter

Waluigi

SpinCurveball master

Rosalina

ControlWind reader

Donkey Kong

PowerBrute drive

Toad

SpeedQuick swing

Boo

SpinGhostly curve

Chargin’ Chuck

StaminaSpeed Golf NEW

Pauline

ControlPrecision shots

Your Mii

CustomPlayer-built stats

DLC Characters (4 Post-Launch Additions)

Toadette

SpeedWave 1 Aug 2021

Koopa Troopa

SpeedWave 2 Nov 2021

Ninji

SpeedWave 2 Nov 2021

Shy Guy

ControlWave 3 Mar 2022

Character Personality Tags

Each character also has a defining Personality trait that affects animation and special-shot flavor: Mario is Athletic, Luigi is Lucky, Peach is Technical, Wario is Greedy, Bowser is Aggressive, Pauline is Showy. These personality tags appear in the Character Personalities series of official Nintendo character renders.

Super Rush received 3 waves of free post-launch DLC updates between August 2021 and March 2022, adding 4 characters, 3 courses, and various mode tweaks. All updates were completely free to all owners.

Wave 1 — August 2021

• New character: Toadette — a Speed-style golfer.
• New course: New Donk City Course — the urban-themed course set in New Donk City from Super Mario Odyssey.
• Online improvements: matchmaking and connection stability fixes.

Wave 2 — November 2021

• New characters: Koopa Troopa + Ninji (two new Speed-style golfers).
• New course: Bowser Highlands — the volcanic Bowser-themed advanced course.
• Battle Golf: new arena variants and item additions.

Wave 3 — March 2022

• New character: Shy Guy.
• New course: All-Star Summit — the final DLC course, mountain-themed with elevation challenges.
• Mii customisation: additional Mii outfit and accessory options.

Super Rush launched with 6 courses and added 3 more via free DLC over 9 months, for a total of 9 distinct courses (plus the Battle Golf Stadium). Each course has its own biome, hazards, and tactical character.

Launch Courses (6)

Tutorial

Bonny Greens

The rookie training course and Golf Adventure HQ. A gentle countryside course with wide fairways and minimal hazards. Home to the gear shop and tournament hub.

Standard

Wild Wiggler Course

Hilly forest course with Wiggler hazards that crawl along the fairways. The first real tournament challenge.

Standard

Ridgerock Lake

Lakeside course with mountain ridges and significant wind variation. Water hazards force careful club selection.

Standard

Balmy Dunes

Desert course with periodic sandstorms that drop visibility mid-shot. Cactus hazards and sand bunkers throughout.

Bowser

Bowser’s Castle

The original Bowser-themed course at launch — castle setting with lava bunkers, Bullet Bills, and Bowser statue hazards. (Note: Bowser Highlands DLC course is distinct, see below.)

Championship

Royal Course

The graduation course. The most polished and technical course in the game. Site of the Golf Adventure championship and online tournaments.

DLC Courses (3)

DLC Wave 1

New Donk City

Urban course set in New Donk City from Super Mario Odyssey. Tee off from skyscraper rooftops and putt across plazas. Released August 2021.

DLC Wave 2

Bowser Highlands

Volcanic Bowser-themed course with active lava flows that periodically change hole layouts. Released November 2021.

DLC Wave 3

All-Star Summit

Mountain-summit course with extreme elevation changes and altitude wind effects. The final DLC course, released March 2022.

Battle Golf Stadium

The custom Battle Golf Stadium is the dedicated arena for Battle Golf mode. Unlike the standard courses, it has 9 distinct greens arranged in a single arena with all visible simultaneously — a unique format unlike any traditional golf venue.

One of Super Rush’s defining features is Mii avatar integration — the player creates or imports a Switch Mii and uses it as the protagonist of Golf Adventure mode. The Mii is the only character that can be statistically upgraded over time, making it the most personalised playable character in any Mario Golf to date.

Mii Customisation

• Mii import — use any Mii from the Switch system or create a fresh one specifically for the game.
• Stat upgrades — Power, Stamina, Speed, Control, and Spin all level up via Golf Adventure progression. Final-game Miis are statistically tuned to be competitive with established characters.
• Gear customisation — outfits, hats, accessories, club sets, balls, and golf bags all visually customisable from items purchased in the Bonny Greens shop.
• Class/personality — Miis can lean into different play styles (Power/Speed/Control) by allocating stats during levelling. The Mii becomes mechanically unique to each player.

Carrying the Mii Across Modes

The Mii created in Golf Adventure can be used in all other modes (Standard Golf, Speed Golf, Battle Golf, Online). It travels with you to online tournaments, friend matches, and local multiplayer — keeping all its upgraded stats and gear. This makes Super Rush effectively a long-term character-building game for serious players.

Four verified official Nintendo trailers covering Mario Golf: Super Rush from announcement through launch.

Other Official Marketing

Beyond the 4 verified trailers above, Nintendo ran additional marketing through 2021–2022:

• DLC Wave trailers — each of the 3 free DLC waves received its own announcement trailer (Toadette, Koopa+Ninji, Shy Guy).
• Play Nintendo tips videos — Nintendo of America produced a series of “Tips” videos covering Speed Golf, Battle Golf, and Golf Adventure mechanics.
• November 2021 update news courses — Nintendo released a dedicated trailer when Bowser Highlands launched.
• Social media banners — Nintendo’s Instagram and Twitter ran ongoing promotional imagery through the live-service window.

All official content is available on the Nintendo of America YouTube channel.

Mario Golf: Super Rush launched on 25 June 2021 to mixed-to-positive reviews — Metacritic 70 (slightly lower than MTA), IGN 7/10, Eurogamer “Recommended”, Nintendo Life 7/10 — with strong praise for Speed Golf and Golf Adventure mode balanced against criticism of light course count and limited tournament depth at launch.

Acclaim

• Speed Golf novelty — consistently the headline win. Reviewers called the simultaneous-play golf format “genuinely original” and “the first new Mario sports concept in years.”
• Golf Adventure return — the 15-20 hour single-player campaign with Mii customisation was widely praised as the kind of substantive content Mario Golf had been missing since the GBA era.
• Battle Golf chaos — multiplayer reviewers loved Battle Golf as a party-game-ready short-form mode. Nintendo Life called it “Mario Golf’s answer to Splatoon’s Turf War.”
• Camelot polish — the underlying golf simulation was praised as Camelot’s most refined ever. Shot physics, club selection, and course design met the franchise’s high baseline.
• Mii integration — the depth of Mii customisation in Golf Adventure was singled out as a notable feature given how rarely Switch games leverage the Mii system meaningfully.
• Free DLC strategy — the 3-wave free update model was retroactively praised as generous Mario sports support.

Criticisms

• Light course count at launch — 6 launch courses was considered thin compared to Mario Golf: World Tour’s 10. The DLC additions brought it to 9, but reviewers wanted more at day one.
• Standard Golf marginalised — the traditional tournament/match-play modes felt deprioritised in favor of the headline Speed Golf and Battle Golf modes.
• Online matchmaking issues at launch — server stability problems in the first weeks; significantly improved with August 2021 patch.
• Golf Adventure cinematic pacing — some reviewers found the story interludes slow compared to the tournament gameplay.
• Speed Golf vs purists — traditional golf fans found Speed Golf antithetical to the sport’s contemplative nature. A divisive design choice.

Sales Performance

• Launch week (25 June – 1 July 2021) — #1 in Japan launch week (87k physical); UK debut #1 ahead of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart; US debut top 5.
• End of September 2021 (Q2 fiscal report) — 1.84 million copies sold worldwide — outpacing initial estimates for the franchise.
• End of December 2021 — 2.55 million copies. Strong holiday performance.
• End of March 2022 — 2.83 million copies. The DLC wave 3 spike helped maintain visibility.
• Lifetime (Nintendo 2024 financial reports) — over 3 million copies sold. Solid commercial performance.

Context

For comparison: Mario Golf: World Tour (3DS, 2014) sold approximately 1.5 million copies lifetime. Super Rush more than doubled its predecessor’s sales. It also outsold every previous Mario Golf title in lifetime sales — a clear commercial validation for the deeper-content, multiplayer-focused direction.

For franchise context: Super Rush’s 3M+ lifetime lands behind Mario Tennis Aces’ 5M+ but well ahead of Mario Strikers: Battle League’s ~2M and Mario Sports Superstars’ ~750k. Within Camelot’s Switch sports portfolio, it’s solidly mid-tier.

• 7-year gap — the longest gap between Mario Golf releases in the series’ history. World Tour was 2014; Super Rush was 2021.
• First Mario Golf with a story mode since 2004 — the previous Adventure-style Mario Golf was Mario Golf: Advance Tour (GBA, 2004). Super Rush’s Golf Adventure ended a 17-year campaign drought.
• Camelot Software Planning developed every Mario Golf since Mario Golf (N64, 1999) and every Mario Tennis since Mario Tennis (N64, 2000) — they’re the Mario sports specialists.
• 16 launch characters expanding to 20 via 3 waves of free DLC — the largest roster expansion of any Mario Golf title.
• Chargin’ Chuck is the only Mario Golf newcomer in the launch roster — his first-ever playable appearance in a Mario sports game.
• Speed Golf concept was reportedly inspired by Camelot’s interest in real-world Speedgolf — a niche sport where actual time-pressure golf is competitive.
• New Donk City Course (Wave 1 DLC) is the only Mario Golf course based on a setting from another Mario game (Super Mario Odyssey). A cross-franchise tie-in.
• Mii avatar integration is the deepest Mii-system implementation in any Switch game outside of Mii Maker itself — stat levelling, gear customisation, and outfit collection.
• Bowser Highlands (Wave 2 DLC) is distinct from the launch Bowser’s Castle course — the two are different volcanic Bowser-themed venues.
• Yoshi color variants — Yoshi has 6 color variants (Red, Orange, Yellow, Light Blue, Blue, Pink) selectable as cosmetic alts.
• Koopa Troopa color variants — Koopa has 4 color variants (default Green, Red, Yellow, Blue) when chosen as DLC character.
• Ninji in the Wave 2 DLC marked Ninji’s first appearance in any Mario sports title — the small spring-jumping enemy from Super Mario Bros. 2 / Yoshi’s Island.
• Pre-launch demo — unlike Mario Tennis Aces, Super Rush did NOT receive a free playable demo before launch. Camelot relied on Direct trailers alone for marketing.
• The Mario Tour ladder in Golf Adventure references the real-world PGA Tour structure (rookie tournaments, intermediate tournaments, championship) — Camelot’s nod to authentic golf culture.
• Camelot moved to Mario Strikers next — after Wave 3 wrapped in March 2022, Camelot pivoted to developing Mario Strikers: Battle League (released June 2022).

Box art, logos, and key visuals for Mario Golf: Super Rush.

In-game character action shots showcasing the run-between-shots layer and the Mario Golf swing animations.

Additional promotional materials, character variants, and Speed Golf / Battle Golf marketing imagery.

Speed Golf Marketing

Battle Golf Action

DLC Character Reveals

Related coverage on Super Luigi Bros.

Character renders, course screenshots, Speed Golf and Battle Golf action shots, Golf Adventure interludes, and DLC reveals all appear throughout the sections above. The 4 verified Nintendo trailers are in the Videos section.