Nobody makes you do this.
Nobody makes you drive six hours, or take Friday and Monday off, or fly across the country to play kubb. You do it because at some point the game got its hooks in you, and because the people who show up to kubb tournaments aren’t just friends, they’re family.
It’s the commitment and dedication of every player and every organizer that has made it possible for this game to thrive and continue to grow year in and year out.
That love for the game is the only reason the American Kubb Association exists, and it’s the passion we carry into every decision we’ve made over the past couple of years.
And something big is happening. Can you feel it?
What does golf have to do with kubb?
In June 1960, Arnold Palmer flew to Scotland for the Open Championship at St. Andrews. He had already won the Masters and the U.S. Open that spring. The story goes that he spent the flight drinking with a sports journalist named Bob Drum, and the two of them came up with a grand idea to connect four of the big golf tournaments. They were run by four different organizations, in two countries, with no relationship to each other. The only connection was a single thread: a love for the game.
Palmer and Drum decided that together they added up to something different, something bigger. They didn’t know it then, but golf had been waiting for it.
The word “slam” first appeared in English in the early 1600s as the name of a trick-taking card game, and when a player took all the available tricks it came to be known as a “grand slam.” In 1930, Atlanta journalist O.B. Keeler borrowed the term to describe Bobby Jones sweeping all four of the era’s biggest championships in a single year. The term had entered the sports lexicon.
That was the seed of the idea Palmer and Drum were batting around while buzzed somewhere over the Atlantic. The idea took hold and turned four disconnected events into a season-long race, and the rest is history.
American Kubb Associations Open Championship Series Season One
The events already existed. The passion and dedication from players and organizers is already there. So at the beginning of this year the American Kubb Association announced the Open Championship Series to start to connect it all. Four major events that span from sea to shining sea, born in the crucible of kubb, connected for the first time.
And now we’re taking it one step further.
We’re not calling it a grand slam, but Season One is not that far off. A season-long points race from October to July. It starts in Raleigh in a few short weeks and culminates at Natty’s in July. Four tournaments from coast to coast connected to become a single season, and at the end of it one player claims something that has never been won before.
The Basics
The season is a foundation, and the idea is simple.
Points are tracked at the individual player level. At regional events, teams require a minimum of two players, and all rostered teammates earn the same placement points for their team’s finish. If a group of players competes together across the full season, the season title can be awarded to them as a team.
Every regional championship carries equal points value as the representative event in its region. Winning at West Coast, Midwest, or East Coast is worth exactly the same. The U.S. National Kubb Championship carries a premium at every tier as the national championship and season finale, and reaching the Cage carries a meaningful jump.
A player’s season score is their two best placement scores, plus a participation bonus for every additional event attended. To qualify, a player must register to be listed in the standings, compete in at least two of the four events, and be an American Kubb Association member.
Why it Matters
Kubb in America has grown through people. Players travel, communities form, events grow. Building on strong regional identities, Season One introduces a season-long points race that establishes the national connective tissue that helps elevate kubb as a sport. It gives players more incentive to travel beyond their home region, and to compete for something that spans the entire country. It turns four great events into one unfolding story.
That story already has a summit. The U.S. National Kubb Championship is the finale and the marquee event of the series, the destination the season points toward, and the excitement of that stage carries back out to every regional event along the way.
Season One is also how kubb starts telling its story at a national scale. A season with standings, rivalries, and a champion creates something to follow and something to believe in, in a way that a scattered calendar of events never could. It gives new players something to discover. This is how kubb moves from a fragmented collection of tournaments to a national sport, one season and one story at a time.
The Big Picture
Season One is a foundation. As the series grows, more sanctioned events at different tiers will join the framework, the player base will expand, and the season narrative will deepen. This is the first chapter of what kubb in America becomes over the next twenty years, with the U.S. National Kubb Championship at its center.
Registration is open
The season opens at the East Coast Kubb Championship.. The first points are up for grabs in Raleigh, North Carolina on October 17. Make your plans now.
For more information about the rules, the points system, and to complete your registration from visit kubbamerica.org/series
Somebody is going to be first. Will it be you?
