On an autumnal Wednesday in Inverness, Cynthia Harland and Ginny Felch were chatting after their thrice weekly pickleball game at the First Valley tennis court, as Ms. Harland’s puppy scampered in the sun.
The two were discussing how lighthearted and low-stress pickleball can be. “If I don’t laugh 10 times before I get in my car, I won’t come back,” Ms. Felch said. “It’s all about laughing.”
Ms. Harland agreed: “I played tennis for many years. I didn’t laugh as much.” Then both women got into their cars, each bearing a “Love Pickleball” bumper sticker.
The 50-year-old sport, which is played with a plastic wiffle ball and bears similarities to tennis, badminton and ping-pong, has exploded in popularity in the last two years, especially among those whose age and abilities make tennis more difficult. Though some tennis aficionados may disparage it, the golden age of pickleball is in full swing in Inverness, where the median age is 60.
The Inverness Tennis Club, founded in 1928, saw a surge of new membership applications during the pandemic. Occasional tennis players who spent summers in Inverness were suddenly living in town full-time, and the national pickleball craze had reached its zenith. For years, the club brought on just a handful of new members annually. But in 2020, a record 21 new members joined. Last year there were 16, and 2022 saw another 16. Bob Houghteling, the club’s co-president, estimated that three quarters of the new members are pickleball enthusiasts.
The surge has given the club a financial boost and inspired its board to make improvements, like installing year-round portable toilets at its First and Second Valley courts. “The new membership has revitalized the club and made us realize that recreation pursuits and facilities…are vitally important to the community,” said Julia Burke, the club’s treasurer.
When the club first welcomed the new sport four years ago, it waived the usual initiation fee of $250 for individuals and $400 for families, to encourage a critical mass of pickleballer participation. But since the surge brought more than enough new players to the club, the board voted to charge pickleball members the same as tennis members.
Media coverage of the pickleball boom has only added to the sport’s local popularity. In July, the New Yorker ran a dispatch from the burgeoning world of professional pickleball, and the New York Times published pickleball-related stories two weeks in a row in the following month. The First Valley game reached peak participation—19 sign-ups—soon after the first article, despite its focus on pickleball-related injuries.
The secluded First Valley court, built more than 60 years before the Second Valley court, is cramped by comparison, making it the better candidate for the smaller boundaries of pickleball. The club painted pickleball lines there in 2018, and the board agreed the larger court should be kept exclusively for tennis. But because the First Valley court occupies an average home-sized lot sandwiched between houses, and offers just a few parking spots, the well-attended and spirited games have irked some neighbors.
“The biggest issue is the noise, the ‘thwack-thwack,’” Mr. Houghteling said. “It’s a noisy sport because it’s so much fun and so social.”
The participation is close to reaching a breaking point, he said. On the most crowded days, it can be difficult to fit in everyone who wants to play a match, and players’ cars often block a driveway or threaten ambulance access. The club uses a signup app for pickleball, something drop-in tennis players have never needed, and advises pickleball players to park further down Inverness Way and walk to the court to avoid overcrowding. Ultimately, the number of participants may have to be capped until the club can find a supplementary court in Point Reyes Station or Inverness.
Ms. Harland, a former Marshall resident who now lives in Novato but plays pickleball regularly in Inverness, has been dedicated to the sport since before the tennis club got involved. She and a small contingent of pickleballers used to draw chalk lines at the Dance Palace and at West Marin School for informal games, until they eventually contacted Mr. Houghteling and his co-president, Terry Aleshire.
“It took a while before the tennis club really embraced us and painted lines,” Ms. Harland said. “That was a milestone.”
There are regular pickleball games over the hill, and Seadrift has a game for residents and invitees. But the First Valley group, which meets Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, has built on the institution of the tennis club to make Inverness the pickleball center of West Marin.
As with any change to a century-old sporting institution, the adoption of pickleball has provoked annoyance among some tennis club members who look down their noses at the newer game. “There is a divide in the tennis world,” said Mr. Houghteling, a lifelong tennis player who picked up pickleball himself in the early days of the pandemic. “Tennis and pickleball in many venues are at war, and tennis players feel that pickleball is taking over.”
Serious middle-aged tennis players are the least likely to respect pickleball, he said, though relations in Inverness have generally been friendly. “I think we’ve been very accommodating,” Mr. Houghteling said. “I’m very proud of the club for being welcoming.”
Mr. Houghteling’s relationship to tennis began when he was 4 years old, learning to play on a clay court in Massachusetts. But he acknowledges that pickleball has become a phenomenon, referring to a moment in the movie “Sleepless in Seattle” when Rob Reiner’s character is explaining the dating scene of the ‘90s to a newly single Tom Hanks with just one word he needs to know: “tiramisu.”
Mr. Houghteling said a friend who recently started dating again in his 70s has noticed pickleball in the online profiles of many people his age. “Pickleball,” Mr. Houghteling said, “is the tiramisu of the 2020s.”