Another Successful Frontier Days Tournament

The 7th annual tournament is in the books! With over 230 competitors, $6,000 in prize money given out, and enough revenue to pay off the last remaining loans on our Finley Butte courts, we can safely declare it a success. Winners of each event can be seen on the results page on Pickleball Tournaments, and pictures can be found on our club website. Below are a few pictures of our members playing, volunteering, and spectating.

In case anyone got the tournament bug and wants to play more, the next one in our area is Redmond’s Rock Chuck Open July 8-10. Some events are full, but registration is still open for others through Saturday, July 2. Several of our club members are already signed up to play. Additional upcoming tournaments include:

Blazing Paddles, Klamath Falls July 15-17

Pacific Northwest Classic, Bend July 27-31

Paddling for Childhood Cancer, Klamath Falls September 23-25

Saturday, July 9: Round Robin at 8:30 followed by BBQ/Potluck at 11:00 am

On Saturday, July 9 there will be a round robin open to club members of all skill levels. Arrive by 8:30 am for play starting at 8:45. After the round robin, stick around for a potluck (bring a dish to share), and open play as well. Everyone is welcome to attend the potluck, even if you don’t play in the round robin.

Round robin spots are limited, so sign up on Court Reserve to reserve a spot for yourself. Please arrive on time — if you are late, there is no guarantee you will play.

Pickleball Instruction Monday Mornings

A couple of our club players have started an informal instructional group meeting Monday mornings, weekly, from 9:00-10:00 am. If you are new to the game or wanting to improve your game, this will be a great way to learn skills necessary to feel good out on the court. Or, if you are a new club member, this will be a great way to meet others while improving your skills. The weekly sessions will make it easy for you to drop in whenever you are able to come. The one hour sessions will include serves, return of serve, dinking, drop shots/advancing to the net, and more.

Stay longer if you can to put your skills to work in some games afterward. Simply drop in or sign up in the events section of Court Reserve.

Note: the group is skipping July 4th (this coming Monday), so the next occurrence will be Monday, July 11th. There will still be Open Play on the 4th for anyone who is around and wants to play.

Ball Machine: Training July 6, 10 am

Our club has purchased a ball machine for members to use. Mark O’Brian has volunteered to give a training session on how to use it this Wednesday, July 6th at 10 am. Expect more information in the near future on how to reserve the machine and pay the $5 fee per use, but for now we want to start giving people the opportunity to get trained on it.

Weekly Paddle Battles Continue!

Just a reminder that we are continuing to do paddle battles multiple evenings a week for various player levels. The old adage 'The more the merrier!' rings true with these events. We would love to have more teams signing up each week and hope to see you there! If you want more information on what a paddle battle is, read more here.

Note: We will be skipping the Monday, July 4th occurrence.

Who serves first?

There has been some confusion about who serves first on our courts. Did you know that point 3.b. of our club rules actually states “The side nearest the parking lot will begin the serve.”? For play at our courts, this is the standard that we follow.

New Members

Our club continues to add more players. Welcome, and looking forward to seeing you all on the courts!

Joel Hays

Marvin Ray

Jason Dellinger

Poinciana Dellinger

Don Hutchinson

Sean Creighton

Sharon Parks

Marty Mitchell

Marlene Mitchell

Thank You!

A big thank you to Pickleball Planet who recently donated a box of 100 Franklin balls to our club!

Wider World of Pickleball

The founders of pickleball would likely be astounded by how much the game has changed since 1965. For any of you who have played for a decade or more, you might also see significant differences between the game as you learned it and how many people play in 2022. This article had some interesting insights into how some of the “conventional wisdom” of how to play pickleball might be getting updated to reflect changing strategies. Of course, as mentioned at the end, there’s no one “right way” to play, but it’s always good to keep an open mind and add new tools to your toolbox.

By now we’ve all heard that Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in the country. But, what does that really mean? How fast is it growing? Where is the growth coming from? Without going into too much detail, this article provides some actual numbers behind various aspects of the growth.

Feedback

I’ve turned comments on for this post, and I’d love to hear back from you! Are there topics you’d like hear more about? Articles or instructional videos about pickleball you’d like to share with the club? Hopefully this goes without saying, but I’ll just ask that everyone keeps all discussion civil and positive so that we can keep the comments open.