Mario Golf: Super Rush beginner’s guide, tips, and tricks (2024)

Mario Golf: Super Rush is a whole lot more than just a golf game. Sure, there are plenty of modes that just drop you into a party game with friends or AI, but there’s also a lengthy story mode — Golf Adventure. Playing through the campaign teaches you about everything the game has to offer. And there’s a lot going on in Mario Golf: Super Rush.

In this Mario Golf: Super Rush beginner’s guide, we’ll give you the advice we wish we had starting out. We’ve got tips about what to focusing on, what’s important in each game mode, shaping your shots, topspin, and backspin, and leveling up your character.

As you play Golf Adventure, you’ll get introduced to the various game modes and concepts in Mario Golf: Super Rush. But you won’t be playing with every condition, requirement, or ability from the beginning.

Pay attention to what the rules of the match you’re playing actually are so you know what to worry about. If you’re only going for score like in Bonny Greens (the first course), you don’t need to worry about rushing. At Ridgerock Lake, you’re not timed, but you have a limited number of shots. When you reach Balmy Dunes, you’ll learn about power shots. You won’t have to worry about the full-contact aspects of battling your opponents between shots for a while. All of which is to say, your early tournaments look a lot more stressful than they are.

Eventually, these concepts all will come together and your time, number of shots, and dashing between swings will matter a lot more. But while you’re learning, only focus on what the game is currently teaching you. You’ll be learning one thing at a time, and layering on new experience(s).

Your power — how hard and far you can hit the ball — and your control — how straight the ball goes when you hit it — go together. Your power gauge when you start a swing tops out at your maximum distance, as determined by your power.

The two red triangles at the top of your power gauge are the shot’s shift. If you let set your power all the way to the max, your shot will have the chance (randomly determined) of going left or right of where you aimed. The size of the shift depends on everything from your clubs to the terrain to your control stat.

What this means is that you’ll (almost) never want to hit a shot with full power. Instead, you’ll need to stop a little short of that so you maintain control. It also means that increasing your control stat as you level up is just as important as increasing your power.

Similar to control, you have a spin stat. After you’ve set a shot’s power, you’ll be able to adjust the shot’s spin by moving the left thumbstick (this is kind of like shift, but intentional). As you get more powerful, you’ll even be able to zigzag shots.

The important thing to know starting out is that spin gets powerful fast. It never quite gets to a sudden 90° turn, but it can feel close. Practice with spin, and use it subtly at first — there are three levels of spin indicated by chevrons on your spin gauge. Make your adjustments gently at first before trying hook shots.

Spin also works for vertical control. Arrows going forward indicate a higher shot, and arrows pointing back mean a lower shot. This isn’t quite as profound as changing clubs, but it can help you avoid obstacles.

The other thing happening during your swing — after power, shift, and spin — is topspin and backspin. These control how your ball behaves once it hits the ground.

Topspin means the ball will continue rolling forward farther. Backspin means the ball will stop rolling sooner (and maybe even roll backward a little).

You add topspin by double tapping the A button while setting a shot’s power. To add backspin, tap or double tap B.

As you complete courses and tournaments, you’ll earn XP and your character will level up. You’ll get at least one (usually a few) stat points every time you level up. These stat points go into improving your stats.

All of the control you have over your shots depend on these stats. There are five of them:

Starting out, power is the most important stat — it increases the distance of every shot you take which gives you more options for completing a hole. Nearly as important is control — which keeps reduces the effect of shift. Third on our list is spin — as you get comfortable with it, spin is an incredible way to shape your shots.

As you level up your stats, though, keep an eye on the others. Leveling one stat too fast will reduce your stats elsewhere. Watch for those reductions and balance them out as best you can.

It’ll be several hours and multiple courses (locations) before you have to worry much about the running between shots — the early courses all focus on score and terrain. There are still nuances to running around that matter, though.

Dashing and special dashing are pretty obvious ways to move quickly (and to knock other players and other players’ balls out of the way). A less obvious way is drafting.

While running between shots, follow along behind another player. (You’ll probably see the announcer Toad say something about your drafting.) As you run, you’ll build up a little speed until you get a huge boost that doesn’t drain your stamina.