Badminton, table tennis & golf for casual play

Gear for relaxed games in the garden, at the beach, on holiday or in the sports hall. Lifetime's pack of five white plastic shuttlecocks comes in a tube that protects their shape. For ping pong, the Softee Sanle set holds two bats with black and red rubbers and three balls, and the Slazenger retractable net pulls out to about 165 cm and clamps onto a dining, garden or office table, then rolls back into a small housing. Golfers will find the Condor SPA V1, a pack of three white balls with a red alignment line, handy as spares for a casual round or for chipping and putting practice.

What to check

Measure your table top before you pick the net: the clamps fit edges up to about 5 cm thick, and at about 165 cm the net covers the full width of a standard table. Plastic shuttles survive mishits and frame shots far better than feather ones, which makes them the right choice for beginners and garden games. Outdoors, any shuttlecock drifts in the wind, so play on calm days or in a sheltered spot.