How to Play Lawn Games
Test your luck with this ancient and easy-going family game.
Two 3-foot iron stakes and four steel shoes.
Ring a horseshoe around a stake (known as “tossing a ringer”).
Official courts are usually clay or sand, but grass works for at-home play. The field includes two stakes that stand 40 feet apart, 14 inches high, and lean about 10 degrees in toward each other. A 6-foot-square pitcher’s box is marked around each stake.
In a two-person game, players start at the same stake. In the first inning, one player (standing inside the pitcher’s box) pitches two shoes, followed by the opponent. The score is tallied. For inning two, the players aim at the opposite stake. They alternate stakes for 25 innings (or you can also play to 40 points). In doubles, partners separate and pitch from opposite sides of the court.
Types of throws are identified by the number of turns in the air before landing. For a flip, hold the shoe from the top, at the middle. For a one-and-a-quarter and a one-and-three-quarter, grip along one shank.
Any shoe landing less than 6 inches from the stake scores a point. A ringer scores three (you should be able to draw a line between the shoe shanks without touching the stake).
Note: Diagrams are not drawn to scale.