Erg Golf

Customers often share with us fun and creative ways they use to approach their workouts. This game is from the archives, first sent in to us by Dick Grossman when he was a rowing coach at Dartmouth College.

Erg Golf was popular before the Performance Monitor included games, and is still a lot of fun now! It allows players to compete against a personal “par” instead of just rewarding overall speed. It can be completed on either the Concept2 Indoor Rower or the SkiErg.

To play:

1. Each of the “holes” on the golf course is a short (500 meters or less) workout. Each hole is assigned a par of 3 to 5 depending on the distance (5 for longer workouts, 3 for shorter).
2. In advance of the tournament, each “player” rows/skis a test 500 meter workout at a solid but comfortable work level. Their time for this workout establishes their personal “par” pace, or par time for 500 meters. This par pace is then used to calculate the proportionate time they must do to achieve par for each different length hole, using the following formula:
   
   Par for hole = Par pace in seconds x (hole length in meters/500 meters)
   
   Here’s an example:
   • Calculate par for each hole and fill it in on the score card. The interactive Score Card can help, just fill in your time for your 500 meter test workout and it will calculate!
   • If the test 500 meter workout is done in 2:05, this gives a personal par of 125 seconds.
   • For a 400 meter hole, par would be 125 seconds x (400 meters/500 meters) = 100 seconds or 1:40.
   • For a 320 meter hole, par would be 125 seconds x (320 meters/500 meters) = 80 seconds or 1:20.
3. The Score Card is completed by determining the times for eagles, birdies, bogeys and double-bogeys as follows:
   
   Use the par for the workout. If the workout is a par 4, such as Hole 1 on the example, an eagle is personal par time minus 8 seconds. Birdie is minus 4 seconds. Bogey is plus 4 seconds, double bogie is plus 8 seconds. If the workout is par 5, eagle is minus 10, birdie minus 5, bogey plus 5, double-bogey plus 10.
   
   Refer to the example below or download a sample score card (Excel format):

You are ready to play! The workouts are at a specified interval, say 6 minutes. The score is tallied and the winner determined.

You may wish to hold a series of games, each with different numbers of holes and holes of different lengths. The possibilities are endless.

FORE!