Pickleball Road Trip to Palm Springs?
Pickleball Road Trip to Palm Springs?
Plus: Speedup Pickleball Paddle Winners Announced!
Paddle Spotlight!
The paddle of the week is the Bread & Butter Filth. The Filth is worth checking out if you or someone you know is looking for a high-performance power paddle. I love it and have tested, played, and drilled with it over the past few weeks. It’s a tournament-caliber paddle; a 3.0-3.5+ would also feel comfortable with it. I let Crystal (from the Simply Pickleball Podcast) borrow mine, and she won’t return it.
Remember, it’s a power paddle, and if you’re looking for a control paddle, check out the Loco. Here’s how I graded it:
Control: B+
Power: A
Spin: A
Forgiveness: B+
Value: A-
Interested in learning more? Check out our review of the Bread & Butter Filth!
If you’re looking for a paddle geared toward a beginner or advanced beginner, here is a selection of all the Bread & Butter Pickleball Paddles.
Hi Pickleballers -
Happy New Year! I hope you set a high bar for your 2024 pickleball goals and resolutions. My 2024 plan includes more pickleball destination vacations. Last year, we played in Las Vegas, Big Island, Hawaii, and Newport Beach, CA. They all had a warm and welcoming pickleball scene for all player levels.
Mission Hills Country Club in Palm Springs is hosting the PPA Tour in a few weeks, so we decided to kick off the new year (and our first pickleball trip) in Palm Springs. There are over 130 golf courses in Palm Springs, and many of them also have tennis and pickleball. There are also several public parks with solid pickleball facilities. There’s no question that Palm Springs should make your list of pickleball destination vacations.
Fritz Burns Park
We started off at Fritz Burns Park in La Quinta for the first few days. They have 16 dedicated pickleball courts, which are well organized. It’s all open play, with a four-on-four-off policy. Four of the 16 courts are built for tournaments, with a shaded grandstand for spectators. When they’re not being used for a tournament, they’re included in the open-play rotation.
The main drawback of many public courts, including Fritz Burns, is they don’t separate courts by level. Pickleball is so much better when you’re all close in skill level. Luckily, we found good competitive games with good guys - mostly from Canada. I would have been perfectly happy playing here the entire time, but we also wanted to check out some other spots.
Pictured here is Fritz Burns on New Year’s Day.
Palm Desert Resort Country Club
Our next stop was the Palm Desert Resort Country Club. This is a private club, but they allow short-term memberships and access for those staying on the property. This place is pretty sweet. They have 24 dedicated courts broken out by skill level - 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 and 4.5. In case you’re wondering, I went undefeated on the 4.5 court… in the one game I played.
Most courts are full in the morning, and you can play many games. I think a lot of the private clubs operate on the same schedule.
Here is a late-morning look at the 4.5 courts.
If you’re heading to Palm Springs for your ultimate pickleball vacation, you may also want to visit Demuth Park and Freedom Park. We didn’t play either of them, but heard good things. If you go, locate all the courts on a map and stay somewhere central. We stayed in Indian Wells, within 15 minutes of all the courts we wanted to play.
Remember that Palm Springs has many retirees, so you won’t find many games with young, aggressive players. However, many players have tennis backgrounds, excellent racquet skills, and are formidable opponents.
Speedup Pickleball Paddle Giveaway Winners!
Congratulations to Jamie N. and Vicky V.! We will contact you shortly to get you your Speedup paddles!
Two things for those that didn’t win:
We are finalizing the details of another paddle giveaway, which will start in the next few weeks. Stay tuned…
Use SIMPLYPB to save 10% on a new Speedup paddle. Due to high demand, both the Fire and Ice are on backorder. The Fire (14mm) should have inventory later this week, and the Ice (16mm) will ship again toward the end of February.
“Best of” Pickleball Lists
Simply Pickleball Discount Codes
Paddles and Accessories
Vatic Pro: SIMPLY10
SpeedUp Pickleball: SIMPLYPB
Bread & Butter: SIMPLYPB
PCKL: SIMPLY15
Spartus: SIMPLYPB
Paddles and More: SIMPLY15
Prolite: SIMPLYPB
The Dink Master: SIMPLYPB
CRBN: SIMPLYPB (NEW!)
Pickleball Clothing
Rally Club Pickleball Clothing: SIMPLY15
The Pickleball Highlife: SIMPLYPB
Thank you for taking the time to read our newsletter and supporting Simply Pickleball. Do you have any topic you’d like me to cover, questions to answer, or maybe I didn’t get something right? Send me a note - I’d love to hear from you.
Happy New Year and Happy Dinking!
Woody
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