FACILITY OF THE MONTH
PALM CREEK
PICKLEBALL CLUB
John’s first reaction to seeing Palm
Creek Pickleball Club’s pickleball facilities is
understandable. This morning he’s looking out
over an ocean of 32 blue- and green-painted
pickleball courts, each individually fenced and
gated, all framed by mountains – probably
the largest single-location pickleball facility
in the world. John only arrived last night and
is already playing in his first 3.5-level rated
Round-Robin this morning, so we take him
over and introduce him to Charles, the RR
Captain for the Noon 3.5 event. As we walk
away, John’s already warming up in a dinking
drill with three new friends.
Irene and I aren’t new to Palm Creek; this is
our eighth year. But as we prepare for writing
this article, today we’re part of a walking
group tour led by Donna Christiansen, Palm
Creek Pickleball Club’s current President. Our
group also includes Tom Gearhart, past Club
President, and Chuck McDonald, Director of
The Palm Creek Pickleball Club Academy (the
club’s training arm). We walk by volunteers
washing courts and others filling training
buckets with practice balls, while still others
are bringing the ball machines out of their
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BY AJ FRATIES
shed in preparation for a drill session. “Pretty
nice, huh?” Donna smiles widely, watching
the organized chaos. “Thankfully we have 120
volunteers! We need every one of them!” All
day every day and even at night under the
lights, this well-oiled pickleball machine runs
almost completely on volunteer fuel.
But, as we walk, our conversations bring
out that what also makes this pickleball club
truly world-class are the other things that you
can’t see, the stuff behind the curtain. “Right
now we’re testing an online sign-up program
for our training classes, and if that goes well
we intend to move to it for our Round-Robins,
shootouts, and maybe our social events,
too,” Donna notes, and counts off a few
other initiatives. “We’re participating in the
development of an automated rating service.
We’re continuously reworking the organized
play schedules to better meet our members’
needs. Bob VanderLinden, our Tournament
Director, has an amazing team and they run
great tournaments. And we think Tom and
Jeanne Gearhart have a terrific certification
process for referees...but we’re also a USAPA
club, so we are watching what the USAPA is
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doing very closely with all this stuff so we
don’t duplicate efforts.”
Donna has been here since 2001 and
part of the club since its beginning in 2003.
“Originally we had maybe 30 members and
we were playing on four courts the park built
over one old tennis court. Tony Calandrillo
and Ferd Sobato were our first instructors.
But they didn’t know too much more than
us; we all learned together!” Like Donna,
Tom Gearhart has been here since before the
club was formed. “When we started,” he says
now, “we were a bunch of baseline slammers.
After a few years Wayne Muglli and Spike
Christenson came down and gave us a clinic
and taught us this new thing. They called it
‘dinking’! It changed how we thought about
playing pickleball!”
Lots of folks are thinking about how they
play and are working on it today. And that’s
perfect....it’s a bluebird day, near 70 degrees,
no wind, ideal for feeding their pickleball
addictions. In fact, between two different
round robins, the open play and the formal
and informal training, nearly every court is
in use.