PANAMA CITY BEACH — The echoing sounds of balls being whacked, people yelling and sneakers squeaking on the wooden Frank Brown Park basketball court can be heard from outside the closed doors of the gymnasium.
Inside, more than 50 people, mostly snowbirds but some locals, are enjoying a game of pickleball, one of the fastest-growing sports in the country.
Invented in the mid-1960s as a children’s backyard pastime, it has become popular among adults in the past few years.
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So many people have been enjoying the sport at Frank Brown Park that players are concerned they are running out of space.
“There have been normally 70 to 80 people” each session, said Carl Gendece, a seasonal resident from St. Louis who used to teach tennis and gives pickleball lessons at Frank Brown Park. “We’re almost to the point where we don’t really have enough room.”
Gendece said the game, which combines many elements of tennis, Ping-Pong and badminton, is not difficult to learn.
“If you have just a little bit of hand-eye coordination, you can do it,” he said.
Gendece said he plays often, as he enjoys the exercise and competition.
“It was a lot kinder way to transition from tennis to a different sport,” he said.
He said pickleball is a great alternative for someone getting older who might be struggling with playing tennis on a larger court.
“A lot of the baby boomers and that group have played tennis and just have found that physically it’s a much harder game to continue to play,” Gendece said.
He said pickleball also is less expensive than indoor tennis.
“If you are playing tennis indoors, you are playing at expensive clubs,” he said. “With this, you can play at recreation centers. They charge us $3 a person to play.”
The game is addictive, said Linda Przytarski from Grand Rapids, Michigan.
“It’s good exercise, but it’s like you are not exercising,” she said. “Every person I know who has started playing pickleball loves it. For us to get exercise is how you get longevity for life.”
Pat Guest, one of the many snowbirds from Canada playing the game, said people who have played racquet sports pick up the game quickly, but it doesn’t take long for those who haven’t to catch on.
“It’s phenomenal,” she said. “It’s supposed to be the fastest-growing sport in North America.”
The game has many similarities to tennis, but the court is smaller, which makes it easier for seniors to enjoy the game, Guest said.
“So more people can play it as you get older. You don’t run as much,” she said.
Pat Gibson, another snowbird from Canada, said she’s been playing the game for a couple of years.
She was not among those players with prior tennis experience.
“The most difficult part of this is returning a good serve,” she said. “Some people can just whiz it and it just barely goes over the net with good spin on it, which makes it go a different way than you think.”
Gibson said the sport is popular in Canada, as it can be played indoors in the winter.
Barb Laramie, a Canadian snowbird who helped get the game going at Frank Brown Park a few years ago, said there were only a few players initially.
“I put an ad on their bulletin board here at Frank Brown Park with my phone number,” she said. “I got a few calls. People started coming out, showing people how to play. They started coming out with their paddles. The other day we had about 70 people show up. It’s really catching on. It’s caught on more this year. It’s a sport that has taken off. Once you start to play it, you’re hooked.”
Jim Ponek, the director of Parks and Recreation for Panama City Beach, said the number of pickleball players has been growing, so much that they made it into two sessions three days a week.
“The group got bigger this year,” he said.
Cheryl Joyner, recreation administration supervisor for the Beach, said the Boys and Girls Club uses the basketball courts after the pickleball games. During the summer months, the club will need the court all day, but Parks and Recreation might offer pickleball sessions at night.
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“We’ve had inquiries [about playing pickleball] over the years, but last year they really got it going, and boy, this year, it’s taken off,” she said.
Joyner said Panama City Beach is not the only place where pickleball is gaining popularly.
“We hear that down south at The Villages, the retirement community, they’ve got about 100 courts,” she said. “And they want more. It will be interesting for us to see what happens after the winter residents go. I think we’re getting some locals [playing], so maybe it will continue.”
What is pickleball? Pickleball is a sport in which two, three or four players use solid paddles made of wood or composite materials to hit a ball over a net. The ball is similar to a whiffleball, just bigger.
- The sport shares features of other racquet sports, the dimensions and layout of a badminton court, and a net and rules similar to tennis, with a few modifications.
- The actual size of the court is 20-by-44 feet for both doubles and singles. The net is hung at 36 inches on the ends and 34 inches in the middle. The court is striped like a tennis court with no alleys. But the outer courts, and not the inner courts, are divided in half by service lines. The inner courts are non-volley zones and extend 7 feet from the net on either side.
- Serves in pickleball must be made from below the waste.
- Players must first hit the ball twice off the ground and then can charge toward the net, but only up to the blue line that is 7 feet from the net.
- “From this line to the net is ‘the kitchen,’ whereas in tennis you can volley the ball anywhere you want to volley it,” said pickleball aficionado Carl Gendece. “You can take it out of the air anywhere. In this game, it forces you to stay behind that line, so it kind of keeps people from crowding the net.”
- The game is won by the first team to hit 11 points.
Want To Play?
- Pickleball sessions cost $3 a person and are held Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The session for beginners is from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m., and the sessions for intermediate and advanced players are from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. For information, call 850-233-5045.