Padel. Anyone play?

[Neilds]

There is a Golf Club near(ish) me called "South Essex Golf Club" It used to be owned by crown golf, Its recently re-invented itself as The Heron Country Club, It now has 3 Padel courts that are busy all the time, and its expensive, Peak time court hire for a visitor is £58 for 90 minutes!

The cost must be why doubles is more popular than singles!

 

[Orikoru]

What's the difference between padel and pickle ball?

Padel has a sexier name.

 

[pendodave]

What's the difference between padel and pickle ball?

You can do pickle pretty much anywhere - just need a (portable) net. So at our local sports centre, it works pretty much like badminton. Very little up-front capital required. Courts are (approx) badminton sized, ball is a plastic thing with holes (think, golf airbags but bigger).
Padel is on purpose built courts with a plexiglass surround that the ball is allowed to bounce off. Courts aren't huge (prob around 1/3 tennis). Bat is a big tabletennis bat, ball is like a tennis ball. No idea of the cost of building a court, but it looks pretty expensive which would explain high court hire costs.

 

[kp17]

Seems to be getting mega popular, courts being built at local golf club just now replacing tennis, and a friend of mine (owns groundworks firm) has big contract (david lloyd gyms I think) to install hundreds more courts up and down UK.

 

[chrisd]

I fancy giving it a try.

A number of courts have opened nearby and I'd love to try it. My story was, when a bad cruciate injury ended my football days at about 30, I learned tennis from scratch, and eventually played for my town team and local leagues for about 12 years until I packed tennis up for golf about 25 years ago. So I'd just like to see if I could do myself justice on a paddel ball or pickle ball court