On a recent sun-kissed Sunday morning in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, a bevy of celebrities, Hollywood executives and glamorous Southern California ladies gathered for green juice and a sweat at the Riviera Country Club. But it wasn’t golf that brought this group together, and it wasn’t tennis, squash or even Pilates, it was pickleball. Some of the players have courts at home, but as a social sport, pickleball is best played in a club. And while there were a lot of Hollywood guys on the court that morning, there was no talk of business, just some good old-fashioned volleying, chopping and dinking.
Think of pickleball as a miniature form of doubles tennis, played with a whiffle ball on an asphalt court one-quarter the size of a tennis court. The fence is a bit lower, there’s less sprinting involved, and you’re physically closer to both your teammate and opponent, making it an inherently lower-impact sport that’s important for on-court banter. . It is less physically demanding, although certain enthusiasts are said to be injury-prone, and it does not require the years of technique that other country club sports may require. It’s easier to get into, it has a quirky name, the ball makes a satisfying sound when it hits the pavement, and the sport is spreading like wildfire.
Pickleball, a tennis-like sport with a fun name, has become popular among wealthy athletes in Hollywood and the Hamptons. Pictured are the pickeball courts at Troubadour Golf and Field Club outside of Nashville, Tennessee.
discovery land company
“A lot of people discovered pickleball during the pandemic,” says producer Ashley Underwood, who is married to Larry David. The duo are part of a regular Sunday couples team that plays pickleball at the Riviera, including Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel and his wife, Staud fashion designer Sarah Staudinger. Underwood is currently working on a documentary project about the sport, so in addition to being a player, she has interviewed professionals and amateurs across the country. “If you start talking to people who play pickleball, it’s not uncommon for people to say, ‘This sport saved my life,’” says Underwood.
To those unfamiliar, pickleball doesn’t sound like the paragon of elegance: its name fails to connote the hideaway of luxurious golf fairways or the social hierarchy of tennis. The sport’s terminology is littered with words that range from the banal (“kitchen,” the space near the net) to the downright awkward (the aforementioned “dink,” a type of shot).
Then there is the matter of the name. While the game originated on Bainbridge Island, Washington in the 1960s, and the state of Washington is currently considering making the game its official sport, the precise origins of its name are unclear; some say it’s because one of the founder’s dogs was named “Pickles.” However, once people get past the name issue and try the sport for themselves, they usually get hooked very quickly.
Pickleball is said to have originated in the state of Washington in the 1960s. Today, the courts can be found on Round Hill in Jamaica and at the Nantucket Hotel. The Breakers in Palm Beach are said to be planning for the courts to open soon.
Digital Spatula / USA Pickleball
Since nationally ranked player Matthew Manasse, 33, began offering clinics and lessons at the Riviera last April, pickleball has become one of the club’s most popular offerings. For many clubs across the country, from the Riviera to the Westmoor Club on Nantucket, pickleball was a pandemic-era pastime that provided social time on the court, a way out and much-needed exercise without the technique. . demands of, say, golf or tennis.
“The barrier to entry is much lower than tennis. You can grab a racket and have fun on your first lesson,” says Manasse. He now hosts clinics and matches for celebrities, and last summer a client flew him out to coach a few matches at Walker’s Point in Kennebunkport, where the Bush family reportedly converted one of their tennis courts into one for pickleball, per Rumor has it. fans Jeb and George W.
“I love pickleball, but I wish it was called something else,” says actor Matthew Perry, who plays several times a week. Perry is just one of many celebrities enamored with the sport. Last fall on Late Night With Seth Myers, Amanda Peet shared a story about getting tennis elbow while playing pickleball; Dr. Brené Brown has a team in Austin; Entourage creator Doug Ellin, Brian and Veronica Grazer, and United Talent Agency’s Jim Berkus are hooked. There is a rumor that Leonardo DiCaprio won’t do the first movie shoots until he has played his morning round of pickleball. Greta van Susteren and her husband, attorney John Coale, converted a disused indoor pool at her Washington, DC, home into a court they now use four or five times a week.
Discovery Land Company founder and president Mike Meldman, whose portfolio includes communities like the Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, Montana, says these days, “there are simply more pickleball players than there are tennis players.”
discovery land company
While some see pickleball as a pastime of the masses, with courts located in Florida and Texas retirement communities, and competitions like the US Open, the backyards and country clubs of the one percent.
Luxury resorts across the country are turning tennis courts into pickleball courts at an astonishing rate. Big investors are clamoring for control of the nascent professional pickleball leagues. Private properties from Beverly Hills to the Hamptons are adding local courts. And while some fads come and go, pickleball seems to be here to stay. According to the U.S. Sports, Fitness and Recreation Leading Participation Annual Report Pickleball, more than 4.8 million Americans picked up a pickleball racket last year, and despite the pandemic, the sport has grown 39.3% in the last two years.
These numbers would be tempting to any investor looking to capture the pickleball market, as several luxury resorts have done. A staggering number of hotels are renovating their Har-Tru tennis courts and paving them with asphalt (pickleballs bounce better on hard surfaces), and many of those hotels are popular with wealthy travelers: the Boca Raton installed four as part of its recent renovation; The Nantucket Hotel and The Winnetu on Martha’s Vineyard have them; Round Hill in Jamaica just built two; Auberge’s new Hudson Valley property, Wildflower Farms, will have pickleball courts, and Breakers in Palm Beach is set to add some to its Breakers West Country Club later this year.
Leonardo DiCaprio is said to prefer that his days on film sets don’t start until after his morning game of pickleball.
Kevork Djansezian
Journalist Greta Van Susteren is rumored to have turned a swimming pool in her Washington, DC home into a pickleball court.
MSNBC
“There’s tremendous interest from our members and from resort guests,” says Jane Broderick, director of golf operations at the PGA National Resort in Palm Beach Gardens. “Interest has skyrocketed in the last two years. We used to have six or eight people a day. Now we are competing in local leagues that have 120 players from our club alone.”
Relative to tennis courts, pickleball courts are a smart move for those looking to maximize the value of their real estate – they take up about a quarter of the square footage. Discovery Land Company, the developer and operator of communities like Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, Montana and Troubadour Golf and Field Club outside of Nashville, Tennessee, has included pickleball courts in each of its projects, and will also include them in the upcoming Projects in Portugal and Scotland.
“If you go to any of our clubs in the morning … the pickleball courts are packed,” says Mike Meldman, founder and president of Discovery. When it comes to people buying multi-million dollar homes and paying a premium for country club-like services on their doorstep, Meldman believes we’re at a time where “there are simply more pickleball players than tennis players.” “.
Pickleball has found its way into the backyards and country clubs of the one percent.”
In the East End of Long Island, sports are destined to be the activity of choice this summer. This spring, East Hampton Indoor Tennis will install its first pickleball court. Sagaponack resident Meagan Ouderkirk, co-founder of Hedge, an elevated “court to cocktail” sportswear line, has noted that Hamptons residents are drawn to the social aspect of pickleball, so it feels like a sport that requires even more elegant attire than tennis. .
“People want to look good doing it with friends, especially when there are cocktails afterwards on the porch,” says Ouderkirk. “What I have also noticed specifically in the Hamptons is that a lot of people are building pickleball courts in their homes!”
Chris Hall, owner of Hamptons construction company CP Complete, confirmed that there has been a clear increase in the number of Hamptons residents adding courts to their backyards. However, for homeowners looking to add a pickleball court in time for Memorial Day, Hall cautions that grading, perimeter fencing and integrating a design into an existing landscape can cost quite a bit. “One would have to be prepared with a budget of $45,000 or more,” says Hall.
That may sound like a significant sum for a 20 foot by 44 foot piece of pavement. But being the first among your friends to master the new status symbol sport can be a small price to pay.
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Source: www.townandcountrymag.com