Howdy, from the MG:SR SRC team!

For very common speedrunning questions about this game, please refrain from posting individual threads in the forum—reference game/category rules and the #faq channel in the Discord server (join link on the left-hand side of this page!) first.

The Discord server has a speedrunning hub section in it, which has the #faq channel, a general speedrunning channel, and routing and glitch-hunting channels for those interested in those components of speedrunning. Feel free to post routing ideas and potential glitches in this forum as well as in the server. You can share your MG:SR speedrun streams in the content section and show us your PBs and best shots in the highlights channel!

This community encourages the use of on-pace notifications for speedrunners of this game. The Discord server has a dedicated #on-pace channel and an opt-in on-pace role for users to ping when they can share someone's stream when they are on WR or PB pace, so that the community can pile in and support while seeing history be made.

Full-game categories: All Courses—beat all courses in Solo Challenge (probably using score attack, as it is much faster) as fast as possible. This is best run as a new-game+ category (NG+). You only need to complete New Donk City and Shelltop Sanctuary once, either on amateur or pro. You can do "No DLC" on any version of the game, but v1.1 and v1.0 are the optimal choices due to deterministic accuracy in those versions. "DLC" stands for the full list of DLC courses included in free updates, so far ending in v4.0 (11 courses). If more courses are added later on, runs in the "DLC" category will be moved to the misc. obsolete all courses category for speedrun history preservation :)

RTA Courses, Button/Motion Controls—stands for "Real Time Attack." Our closest match to the older Mario Golf games' speedgolf modes, but timed externally (i.e., Livesplit). Play through an individual course using the Score Attack mode in Solo Challenge as fast as possible with any character and club set.

All Birdies—achieve the All Birdies medal from a new-game save file, visible on the main menu. This can be done through any mode that works toward the medal unlock.

Story Mode Any%—beat the story mode from a new story mode save file.

All Medals—obtain all 5 medals seen on the main menu from a new-game save file. This is done by completing the following: Story Mode Any%, all One-On-One-Putt challenges (Solo Challenge), getting 800+ points on all 3 Target Golf courses (Solo Challenge), All Birdies (any mode), and achieving super star clubs with every character (3000+ points). This could take well over 10 hours to do, so plan accordingly. It's a terrible meme category due to the superstar clubset grind! There are a variety of ways to do this quickly though, so try it out if you dare.

Misc: Story Mode 100%—beat the story mode from a new story mode save file while also completing all side challenges and buying all stock from every pro shop.

Misc: Unlock All Courses—from a new save file: in Solo Challenge, starting with Bonny Greens, unlock the remaining unlockable four courses by beating up through Wildweather Woods.

Misc: All Courses—Time Attack—All Courses, but strictly using the Time Attack mode of Solo Challenge. Here, your best club with Super Star characters is a 5W, so routing per hole is different already; furthermore, you gotta run. Some characters that float or have good special dashes and speed may be of consideration... You can do "No DLC" on any version of the game, just note that with more courses added in future updates, there will be a bit more menuing in course select depending on your route.

Misc: Mt. Snow—from a new-game+ save of Story Mode, complete the Mt. Snow segment through hole 9 (the Snow King fight is not part of this category). This category allows you to flex your up-to-level 100 Mii and any clubs you'd like to use (lobs included, lol) while strategizing how best to deal with Wario and Waluigi's shenanigans.

Misc: One-On-One-Putt—complete all 5 challenges, in any order, in the one-on-one-putt mode through Solo Challenge. This is best done when already having unlocked all of the challenges.

IL categories: Score Attack, Button/Motion Controls—play for the lowest score on an individual course using the Score Attack Mode in Solo Challenge. Button and Motion controls are separate categories.

Time Attack, Button/Motion Controls—play for the quickest time on an individual course using the Time Attack Mode in Solo Challenge. Button and Motion controls are separate categories. Routing stamina and speed (and obstacle navigation!) makes this category fairly complex to optimize across three different tiers of strength, control and spin.

Lowest Putts—play a full round of a course through Solo Challenge while aiming to take as few putts as possible (shots on the green, effectively).

Thanks for reading! Let us know if you have any questions or feedback, feel free to post here in the forum as well :D

Update, all current categories of full-game and IL varieties are ready to go! Speed Golf was deemed a "full-game" category in relevance to the following: playing a full round of golf, not adhering to in-game tracking of score/IGT, board visibility and desire to run, and community feedback.

All Courses—Time Attack has been added as a full-game miscellaneous category! See the description above :)

Another note: plans for any full-game speedrun related to multiple courses in regards to DLC will likely be separated between DLC and no-DLC categories in the future. This change will probably not happen until all courses are released, so speedrunning new courses as they come out will be encouraged through Speed Golf and the IL leaderboards. Imagine the headache of All Courses but on every single game version... lol

A new-game+ category for Mt. Snow has been added as a full-game miscellaneous category (under misc.)! This is probably the most entertaining part of the story mode, and it also allows you to use any level Mii and any clubs. Strategy here exists in how you deal with Wario and Waluigi's shenanigans. The Snow King fight is a little blasé, so it is not included in this category. This is just a fun side project that is easy to set up due to the game's placement post-story mode completion.

Howdy, with v3.0.0 of the game out, the following has been added:

v3.0.0 categories for All Courses and All Courses—Time Attack; Blustery Basin and Spiky Palms RTA Courses categories; Blustery Basin and Spiky Palms ILs. No new categories are anticipated off of other features, like the CPU difficulties, yet as they lack specific objectives for unlocking in-game progress.

v4.0 is confirmed to be the last free update for MG:SR (lmao). Due to past trends, i.e.,. Mario Maker 2, no future content is really expected at this time as of now. Thus, changes to SRC/mgsr are:

Changed All Courses and All Courses—Time Attack to have only "No DLC" and "DLC" categories [still have to move all courses v2 and v3 somewhere due to existing runs on those categories]

Added Shelltop Sanctuary (Amateur and Pro) as well as All-Star Summit to RTA Courses and Individual Levels.

To-do: gauge interest in speedruns of One-on-one-putt, Target Golf, and an absolutely dreadful "All Medals" run.

Leaderboard has been updated! The following are included:

Added new-game Full Game categories All Birdies (requires unlocking all courses, so moved Unlock All Courses to misc.) and All Medals (8-10+ hour category!)

Added misc. category for One-On-One-Putt (also new-game, pretty challenging!)

Moved v2 and v3 runs over to the misc. obsolete All Courses category for speedrun preservation. This is flexible to include future versions of the game if applicable, although motion runs will be lumped in with button runs with a note in their description of being run with motion.

Added new IL category for "Lowest Putts" on each course.

This is a special challenge to minimize the amount of putts counted on your final scoreboard for your standard round of 18 holes on a course in Solo Challenge.

You can see the rules (declaring unplayable is allowed!) and how the formatting works by viewing the rules for the category (visible on the leaderboards dropdown menu as "level leaderboards")