After a longer than anticipated hiatus due to recent back surgery, the siren sound of an unwritten pickleball article pulls me back to my desk. Or in my case the kitchen counter, which serves as a desk. Fortunately, it’s mid-winter and the weather’s lousy so there hasn’t been much news from the courts, but what news there is has started to pile up.
Eagerly anticipated by Landings Club romantics, Pickle Me Pink, a Valentine’s Day round robin, will be held on Friday February 10th from 1:30 to 3:30. The cost is $25.00, which entitles participants to a spirited competition and a Valentine’s Day themed dessert, whatever that means. Let’s hope that comes with a Landings Club pour courtesy of The Deck.
The Mixed Doubles Club Championships are scheduled for the 24th and 25th of February, and the Men’s and Women’s Doubles on March 9th and 10th. Register at The Landings Club website under Court Sports, or in Courtside News published on Thursdays. You can also sign up at the Franklin Creek Pro Shop.
The World Pickleball Tour Savannah Challenger returns to The Landings Club March 1-3, 2024. Registration is currently open. Click here to sign up. As an exclusive discount for club members, use the promo code listed in Thursday's Courtside News to receive $25 off your entry!
To more mundane news (unless you are a pickleball news junkie with plenty of time on your -my- hands), note that the previously reported Pickleball Wars story is still a hot topic. It seems the residents of the tony Presidio neighborhood in currently less-than-trendy San Francisco are embroiled in a dust up with picklers who play in a city park, directly across the road from multimillion dollar homes owned by Silicon Valley elites. The ballers are attempting to reverse a judge’s decision to remove the courts, thus forcing them to instead play at a park inconveniently located several miles away. Ignoring the admonition by one homeowner that the noise was adversely affecting the mental health of some neighbors, after the permanent nets were removed, determined picklers replaced them with preassembled, portable nets and continued play. And so it goes.
It seems Harvard Business Review has taken note of the meteoric rise of pickleball popularity. Apparently, an article scheduled for the March edition will explore what has caused pickleball to grow as fast as it has. Spoiler alert: it seems reasons include lower barrier to entry, length of games, friendly community of players (if not Presidio mansion owners), COVID and retired boomers who need a court sport less taxing than tennis. To the best of my knowledge no Landings Club picklers were interviewed, although we can assume we’d have echoed the same sentiments. In the words of one wag whose Reddit screen name is BustinChaps56, pickleball is popular because, “You only suck for a half hour and after that you think you can go pro.” I wonder….
Finally, congratulations to Scott McKessy and Claudia Gaughf for being named Landings Club Pickleball Players of the Year.