Michigan State Games add FootGolf to 2026 summer calendar

FootGolf is getting a bigger stage in Michigan, and the 2026 Meijer State Games calendar makes that plain. The June 27 tournament at Royal Scot Golf & Bowl in Lansing will be run as a one-day, 18-hole event, and it comes with the kind of structure that signals a sport moving deeper into organized competition: check-in at 8:30 a.m., a 9 a.m. start, registration closing June 25, and medals awarded for first, second and third in each division.

That framework matters because the event is not just another local outing. Michigan’s FootGolf competition is listed as a qualifier for the 2026 State Games of America in State College, Pennsylvania, giving players a pathway beyond the state level and placing FootGolf alongside the broader amateur sports pipeline that has helped build the State Games brand. The tournament also sits in the middle of the main weekend of the 2026 Summer Games, which runs June 25-28 and opens with a ceremony on June 26, putting FootGolf in the same spotlight as established events across the schedule.

The logistics tell the story of a sport that has matured into a formal multi-sport format. Players are expected to bring a regulation No. 5 soccer ball, though the course will have only a limited supply available. The official rulebook says FootGolf is played from the teeing zone to the hole on the green zone in the fewest kicks, and it stresses pace of play and course care. Cleats are not allowed; turf shoes or indoor soccer shoes are the proper choice. Those details may sound routine, but they are exactly the kind of operational rules that make a hybrid sport fit neatly into a golf venue without sacrificing the playing surface.

Michigan’s embrace of FootGolf is not new. The Meijer State Games first added it in 2018, when sport director Mirza Causevic called it “a twist of golf and soccer” that would draw interest from all age groups. The first State Games FootGolf event was held at Stormy Creek Footgolf Course in Kentwood, and the sport has since remained part of a program that, in 2024, expected more than 6,000 athletes across 28 sports and reported an economic impact of more than $3 million.

That growth reflects a wider institutional base. The American FootGolf Federation says it introduced FootGolf to North America in 2011 and serves as the U.S. governing body and exclusive American member of the Federation for International FootGolf. FIFG, which sets the international rules and recognizes one member per country, gives the sport the kind of governance structure that helps state games treat it as a legitimate competitive discipline, not a novelty. Michigan’s 2026 listing shows exactly where FootGolf now fits: inside the amateur sports mainstream, with medals, rules and a national qualifier attached.