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probably the most addicting sport I've
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ever played in my life pickleball it's a
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very social sport you can play with any
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ages go out and hit a ball and you never
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want to go home
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[Music]
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I'm Kim Schultz and I'm the co-director
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of the Coachella Valley Grand Prix
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pickleball tournament which we're
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hosting here at PGA West and we've been
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doing pickleball tournaments for about
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six years tennis tournaments and so on
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for 20 some years we have 200 plus
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entered in this tournament here
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the growth of tennis has kind of
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stagnated whereas pickleball has taken
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off in meteoric fashion the game is
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exploding the enthusiasm is there and
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it's very social I mean there's a
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definite camaraderie that you know if
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you say pickleball anywhere people
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connect with you and you're out there
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having fun
0:56
when we moved out to the desert about
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seven and a half years ago one of the
1:01
selling features where we bought was we
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got these brand new pickleball courts I
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played Sports my whole life and I was
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very curious about pickleball and I got
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the bug
1:13
it is a national thing although
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Coachella was one of the first places to
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embrace the game and it had great
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success with a lot of crossover with
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tennis players and therefore their
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enthusiasm kind of trickled down into
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their Club memberships and uh just taken
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off from there
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it's been the fastest growing sport
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internationally for the last 15 20 years
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even though the sport was invented by
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those three guys on Bainbridge Island in
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Washington state for their kids to keep
1:45
their kids busy it really took off among
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the older people
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well there you go the non-athlete can
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come out basically with a semi-degree of
1:54
hand-eye coordination decent balance can
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able to engage in the game at a very
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interesting level and they can actually
2:01
see Improvement on a daily basis as your
2:04
hand eye gets better your control gets
2:06
better and the best part too is it's a
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very social thing a person can just show
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up at a public court by themselves not
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knowing anybody put their paddle right
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with the other paddles and you play into
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a group of people you want to know how
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long we've been playing together one
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factor we're all in our 60s I'll be 61
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on Monday okay
2:28
we've been playing for about a year but
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we've only been playing together for
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like a couple months these two we just
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met and asked if we could play a game
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and we just hooked up and we just loved
2:41
we had the game you grow pretty quick in
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the sport I think I think we've all gone
2:45
a long way because I was just telling
2:47
her
2:48
um like 10 minutes ago I like playing
2:49
with people that are better than you
2:51
because it makes you play better and
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she's much better than me and I already
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improved my game she's just really kind
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but
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[Laughter]
3:05
okay well first of all you need the room
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it's 44 feet long by 20 feet wide and
3:11
you need some area in the back because
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you have to serve behind the Baseline uh
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you can't step on the Baseline when you
3:17
serve so once your Net's set up then
3:19
we're going to measure a few things off
3:21
so we're gonna measure the center part
3:24
and just make a line on the outside
3:27
at 22 feet and that's where the Net's
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going to sit from the middle we're going
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to come out seven feet on either side as
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you see this area here this is called
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the non-volizole who serve Cross Court
3:39
that's why we need those lines there
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this line here you can't go into this
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area or step on the line unless the ball
3:47
is bounced in here and that prevents
3:50
people coming all the way up on a volley
3:53
walking in here and slamming it at their
3:55
opponent so it just makes the whole game
3:57
a little bit more fair for everybody
4:00
think it's obviously wonderful and we
4:03
also see there's a great opportunity
4:05
I've been playing pickleball for about
4:06
two and a half three years we like to
4:09
focus on bright fun colors
4:12
and of course our best selling design is
4:16
our man or woman with the martini which
4:19
is sort of embodies what we believe in
4:22
the pickleball high life which is really
4:24
you know to just have fun on the court
4:26
and at the end of the day to just have a
4:28
martini with them and have fun and live
4:30
the pickleball High Life
4:32
my name is Aaron Christopher I'm the
4:34
executive chef here at PGA West private
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Clubhouse and we're celebrating a
4:38
pickleball tournament today we've
4:40
decided to go kind of a regional Mexican
4:42
menu today pickleball is huge here and
4:45
so is Wellness in general I've played
4:48
all kinds of sports growing up but then
4:50
once I started playing ping pong and
4:52
noticed the similarities you know run
4:53
them left kill him right run them right
4:55
kill them left just stuff like that I I
4:57
got hooked on it I just kind of fell
4:59
into it and I I really enjoy it and
5:02
myself honestly I'm so nervous before I
5:04
start playing I don't even can't even
5:05
think about it even
5:09
PJ West actually is known for golf in
5:12
addition to our golf we have 16
5:14
pickleball courts we cater to about 600
5:17
members a week being a pickleball Pro is
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extremely fun
5:20
um you know a dream job my
5:22
responsibilities are you know running
5:24
round Robins for the members you know
5:27
holding Club championships I have four
5:29
weekly clinics I do I try to get more
5:32
members involved you know try to pull
5:34
some over from Tevis but yeah it's fun
5:36
I'm always out there on the court you
5:38
know just playing with the members or
5:40
giving private lessons it includes all
5:42
of that it includes a lot of court time
5:48
we just had the 16 pickleball courts
5:51
renovated two summers ago we did eight
5:53
courts over on the east side and then
5:55
the last summer we finished up the
5:57
renovation with the last eight you know
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members are loving them and it's really
6:01
getting more members out to play so
6:04
what's next for pickleball I would say
6:06
Nationwide definitely more pickleball
6:08
courts all over the place I know it's
6:10
happening here in the Coachella Valley
6:12
but you know if you go two hours out to
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LA it's sort of harder to find a
6:16
pickleball court so turning more of
6:18
those tennis courts into pickleball
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courts you know that's not something the
6:22
tennis player would like to hear but you
6:24
know that's where the demand is how many
6:26
people are going to be using it at what
6:29
time and right now if it's a user-based
6:31
thing it's gonna fall in the way of
6:33
pickleball I mean the courts public
6:35
courts are just saturated people are
6:38
waiting you have 10 eight pickleball
6:40
courts you got 60 people waiting to go
6:42
you look over at gym equipment
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not gonna see that number there when the
6:47
courts are going crazy they're they're
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just being built a few years ago it was
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65 courts nationally per month we're
6:54
popping up and out here in the Coachella
6:57
Valley we have I think four public
6:59
courts maybe five there's more to be
7:02
built uh these private communities these
7:05
gated communities a lot of them have
7:06
some up to 16 courts oh yeah yeah it's
7:10
happening right now you're going to see
7:12
school programs are going to be starting
7:13
there is an emphasis to make it an
7:16
Olympic sport if that goes into an
7:18
Olympic sport it's International and of
7:20
course it'll trickle down into all the
7:22
other you know levels of play into high
7:25
school sports too so
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whether you like it or not
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If there’s a Pickleball Heaven, it was hosted at the Coachella Valley Pickleball Tournament hosted Feb 17-19 in the beautiful Indio desert. The players, the courts, the energy, host organization and PGA West – all set against the stunning vista of the Santa Rosa Mountain Range was as spectacular – and fun – as it gets. Watch it here.
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