Pubgolf Challenges: Ideas That Make the Round

Updated October 2026

Pubgolf challenges are the tasks and quick-fire knowledge questions PubgolfClub builds into every city edition, sitting alongside each hole's set drink and par. Win one and your group earns a power-up that knocks strokes off your card. Lose one and a penalty stroke lands on it instead.

What are challenges in Pubgolf?

A challenge in Pubgolf is a task or a knowledge question set at a hole, or dropped in on the walk between holes. Your group reads it out, someone takes it on, and the result goes on the shared scorecard. Every PubgolfClub city edition comes with challenges built in.

Pubgolf scores on strokes, so anything that adds or removes one changes the card. The challenges are what turn a tidy card into a story: the mate who couldn't name three capital cities, the one who blinked first. Full scoring detail sits on the PubgolfClub How to Play page.

How do challenges change your score?

In Pubgolf, challenges move your score separately from the drinking. Win one and you take a power-up that knocks strokes off your card. Lose one and a penalty stroke goes on, pushing your total up. Penalty strokes come from challenges only, never from how quickly anyone drinks.

The lowest total wins, so a single penalty stroke at hole 4 can cost you the round even when the rest of your card looks good. It also means a quick thinker can claw strokes back on the challenges when a hole hasn't gone their way. The Pubgolf rules guide sets out how strokes, par and penalties are totalled.

Do Pubgolf challenges involve drinking?

No. People often search for Pubgolf dares, and in Pubgolf a dare is a task or a question, never a drinking instruction. A challenge can hand you a power-up or cost you a stroke on the card, and that is where it ends. The set drink and the par at that hole stay exactly as they were.

It is why the challenges are the part groups talk about afterwards. A group well down on the card can still win on challenges, because the strokes a power-up takes off count the same as the ones you saved at the hole.

What are good Pubgolf challenge ideas?

The best Pubgolf challenge ideas are quick, visible and need no equipment. Give each one a clear winner inside two minutes so the round keeps moving. These six Pubgolf games work in any pub, on a daytime round as much as an evening one.

• The no-blink test. Two players stare each other out. First to blink takes a penalty stroke on the card.
• A quick-fire knowledge question. One question to the table, first correct answer wins the power-up. Keep it general: capital cities, film quotes, number one singles.
• An accent round. Everyone talks in an assigned accent until the group reaches the next hole. Drop it and the penalty stroke is yours.
• A photo task. The group recreates a given pose in one photo, before anyone sits down.
• A left-hand-only hole. Right-handers use the left hand for everything at that hole, including holding the glass and tapping the score in.
• No names. For one hole nobody can use a real first name. Nicknames only, slip up and the stroke lands on your card.

Mix tasks with questions so the same confident player doesn't sweep the lot.

What is a power-up?

A power-up is the reward for winning a Pubgolf challenge, and it knocks strokes off your card. That is the whole mechanic. PubgolfClub builds the challenges and the quick-fire knowledge questions into every city edition, which comes as an instant link by email and scores live in your browser.

Power-ups are what stop a mid-table group giving up at hole 6. Hold one back for hole 9 or hole 18 and you can still overturn the card.

Can you make up your own challenges?

Yes. Every PubgolfClub city edition comes with challenges built in, and your group is free to add its own on top. Agree them before hole 1, log them on the scorecard, and apply them the same way to everyone. House rules only cause rows when they appear halfway round.

There are two tests for a home-made challenge. Can a stranger judge the winner in seconds, and can the whole group take part? In Pubgolf a penalty is a stroke on the card and nothing more, so keep that true of anything you add. Browse the Pubgolf by city collection to see what a curated route includes, or set your own holes with the Pubgolf Route Builder.

How many challenges should a round have?

Aim for a challenge at roughly half your Pubgolf holes. On a 9-hole round that is four or five; on an 18-hole round, eight or nine. More than that and the round turns into a quiz with pubs attached. Fewer and the card comes down to sip counting alone.

Spacing beats volume. Put one early so everyone learns how they work, keep the middle lighter, then stack two near the end where a power-up can still swing it. Pubgolf runs 9 or 18 holes for 1 to 16 players, with a 16+ option for bigger groups, and 100 days of unlimited replay, so a stag do or hen do can run the same route again with a different challenge mix.