Pickleball in San Diego Started with One Woman, a Roll of Tape, and a High School Court in Coronado

Pickleball in San Diego runs across more dedicated courts than most people realize. Twenty-four at Barnes Tennis Center in Point Loma. Twenty-six at The HUB in Spring Valley. Twenty-two at Bobby Riggs in Encinitas. Twelve at the Coronado Island Marriott. Eight at Coronado Cays Park that didn’t exist three years ago. That’s nearly a hundred dedicated pickleball courts across the county, and every single one of them has a story that has nothing to do with the sport itself and everything to do with the people who couldn’t stop playing it.

I keep coming back to the Coronado story because it’s the most honest one. No franchise money. No investor pitch deck. One woman, a roll of tape, and a high school court in 2012.

Her name is Tammy Carney. If you play pickleball in Coronado, you already know that.

How Coronado Built Its Pickleball Scene from a Roll of Tape

Tammy Carney started laying down temporary tape lines on a high school court in Coronado twice a week in 2012. No permanent pickleball courts existed anywhere on the island. Not one. No painted lines. No dedicated nets. Just Tammy and athletic tape and a growing group of people who kept showing up because the game had already gotten into their heads the way it gets into everyone’s head.

That’s the thing nobody tells you about pickleball before you play your first game. You think you’re going to try it once. You play four games. Then you’re checking court schedules at 10 PM and texting people you met two hours ago about tomorrow’s open play. The sport is social in a way that tennis never was and competitive in a way that shuffleboard pretends to be. Tammy saw that in Coronado before anyone else did.

She ran the City of Coronado’s pickleball program for seven years. Coordinated events across the island. Won medals at the gold, silver, and bronze levels in competitive play. Built the kind of consistent, unglamorous infrastructure that nobody photographs but everybody depends on. The PCA’s first president, Brenda Arnold, later called her Coronado’s Pickleball Ambassador. That undersells it. Tammy didn’t promote the sport. She physically built the courts with tape, twice a week, for years.

Eventually she joined Impact Activities, the organization that won the city’s contract to manage the Coronado Tennis Center and surrounding facilities. She now runs open play, beginner and intermediate clinics, monthly shoot outs, quarterly round robins, and social events that have turned Cays Park into something more than courts. One of those events was Coronado’s first-ever singles round robin and mixer, which ended at McP’s Pub on Orange Avenue. That’s the kind of programming that builds a community. Not an app notification. A round robin that finishes at the bar where everybody already knows each other because they met on court 3 last Tuesday.

She’s still the one you text at 619-925-6025.

In 2022, Brenda Arnold and Joan Huck founded the Pickleball Coronado Association. Free memberships. Over a thousand people signed up within weeks. In a community of 24,000, that’s not a club. That’s a movement.

The PCA went to the City Council with math: 19 public tennis courts in Coronado. Zero public pickleball courts. Hundreds of players taping temporary lines on shared surfaces. The Marriott had already converted two of its tennis courts into eight pickleball courts because demand made it obvious. The city’s own facilities hadn’t caught up.

The vote passed unanimously. The city allocated $465,220. TrueLine Construction resurfaced courts across all city facilities. By June 2023, Coronado had its first eight permanent, dedicated public pickleball courts at Cays Park with professional-grade surfaces and green fencing for noise attenuation. The PCA’s Facebook post said it all: “No more taping! Thank you to everyone who sent emails to City leaders.”

That’s how a scene gets built when the people who run things care about the outcome.

Ken Irvine: Forty Years of Coronado and Now He’s Teaching Your Third Shot Drop

Ken Irvine is Coronado High School class of 1980. He’s been on this island for over 40 years. Multi-sport athlete since high school. The kind of guy who still shows up to the CHS alumni flag football games at Niedermeyer Field.

He built a career in the restaurant business and became the chef and owner of Bleu Boheme, a French bistro on Orange Avenue that earned him the 2012 Restaurateur of the Year award from the California Restaurant Association’s San Diego chapter. If you’ve eaten in Coronado, you’ve probably eaten his food.

Then he picked up a paddle.

Ken became a PPR Certified Professional and a USA Pickleball Association certified professional. He coaches at Impact Activities and runs his own independent business, NadoPklPro. The name tells you everything. “Nado” is what locals call Coronado. This isn’t a guy who moved here to teach lessons. He IS here.

His coaching runs from beginners through 4.5-level players. He uses the TopSpin Pro and video analysis with voice-over commentary so students can watch themselves hit the shot, then hear Ken explain what went wrong. His student Matthew G. wrote that Ken “drastically helped me with my biggest weakness hitting that critical third shot drop” and changed how he thinks about moving opponents with directional dinks. Another student, Joel F., said Ken used video and drill work to help him develop “an effective consistent and reliable topspin backhand” and praised his “very goal specific curriculum for each lesson.” Private lessons are $100 an hour. Semi-private is $75. Groups of four run $60.

He’s partnered with Selkirk, Adidas, Vuori, and OOFOS. He’s a partner of the Pickleball Coronado Association. Between Joel Myers bringing the national credentials (three-time NAIA All-American, 2026 SDDTA Coach of the Year, 120,000 Instagram followers from his Tennis Channel clinics), Tammy bringing a decade of community programming, and Ken bringing 40 years of Coronado credibility plus a restaurant career that proves he knows how to take care of people, Cays Park has a coaching roster that most facilities would kill for.

What Eight Courts at Cays Park Look Like Now

Impact Activities manages all pickleball at Coronado Cays Park, 100 Coronado Cays Blvd. Eight professional-grade dedicated courts, four with lights for evening sessions. Reservations are $4 per court per hour for Coronado residents, $10 for non-residents. Book through the Impact Activities CA app or call the pro shop at 619-522-2650.

The Coronado Island Marriott Resort and Spa sits across the island with twelve dedicated outdoor courts, permanent lines and nets, open to the public. The APA runs tournaments there year-round: the San Diego Open, the Gold Cup, the Amateur Open, and the Masters. If Cays Park is where the locals built their scene, the Marriott is where the tournament circuit stops when it comes through.

Where can I play pickleball for free in San Diego?

Free public pickleball courts in San Diego exist at several city parks, though most are shared-use setups on repainted tennis surfaces. Barnes Tennis Center runs open play at $5 per person with on-site moderators. Coronado’s Cays Park charges residents $3 per court per hour, which splits to almost nothing among four players. For genuinely free play, San Diego Parks and Recreation operates courts at various community centers, though availability varies and most lack dedicated lines.

Barnes Tennis Center: A Nonprofit That Built a National Stage

Barnes Tennis Center at 4490 W Point Loma Blvd is not a commercial facility. It’s owned and operated by Youth Tennis San Diego, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit incorporated in 1953 with a mission to serve kids through racket sports and education.

That changes what the facility means to the city.

Homer Peabody and Kathy Chabot Willette raised $4.2 million to build Barnes in 1995. The Kathy Chabot Willette After School Tennis program eventually expanded to 96 locations across San Diego. YTSD became an NJTL chapter in 2015. The USTA named Barnes the best facility in the United States in 2021. CEO Ryan Redondo, a San Diego State grad who grew up on courts while his father coached the SDSU men’s tennis team, has led the facility since 2020 alongside COO Jesse Steinberg. In 2024, a $2.5 million state grant funded the first major upgrades in over 25 years. That same year, 19 pickleball courts joined the existing tennis and padel infrastructure, bringing the dedicated pickleball complex to 24 courts.

Barnes hosts ATP and WTA tour events, the Molly’s Angels Youth Tennis Gala, skin cancer awareness days for junior players, and free admission for anyone under 18 to watch professional matches. It’s a facility that was built for the community and has spent 70 years proving it means that.

Now Barnes is hosting the 2026 Oceanview USA Pickleball National Championships for the second consecutive year (October 31 through November 8). The 2025 Nationals drew over 10,000 in total attendance, more than 2,500 players, 3,900 matches, and an estimated $3 million economic impact. A nonprofit that started with travel grants and junior clinics is now hosting the longest-standing national championship in pickleball. That’s the Barnes story.

Bobby Riggs: Where a Tennis Legend’s Home Became Pickleball’s North County Hub

Bobby Riggs Racket and Paddle at 875 Santa Fe Drive in Encinitas was the actual home of Bobby Riggs, the three-time US Open singles champion and Wimbledon Triple Crown winner. The tennis museum on-site is free and open to the public with memorabilia from Riggs, Pancho Segura, Pancho Gonzalez, Martina Navratilova, and Billie Jean King.

Fifteen years ago, Steve Dawson and his wife Jennifer, both professional tennis players, took over the historic club. Pickleball arrived a couple of years later. “We were introduced into pickleball maybe a year or two after we had owned the club, and then the club slowly transformed as pickleball grew,” Steve told Pickleball Innovators. The original seven tennis courts have become 22 dedicated pickleball courts. Steve himself holds multiple US Open and US National Pickleball Championships, a Huntsman World Championship, and two Canadian National Championships.

The facility runs open play at $7 per person (weekdays noon to 2 PM, weekends 2 to 5 PM). Court reservations are $12 an hour. No membership required. The top four courts draw the competitive crowd. The rest are for rec play, lessons, and drilling. Players notice the structure. One reviewer wrote about showing up solo and struggling to find a game until “a guy named Paul saw I was getting shut out left and right and paddled up with me.” That’s the Bobby Riggs vibe. The club hosts Dinks for Dogs events benefiting the Ranch and Coast Humane Society, round robins where people bring coolers for the post-match hang, and the Whispering Angel Celebrity Pickleball Tournament hosted by Drew Brees and surfer Rob Machado as part of the Del Mar Wine + Food Festival, benefiting Feeding San Diego. Past celebrity players include James Blake, CoCo Vandeweghe, former Padre Mark Loretta, Olympic softball legend Natasha Watley, and World Cup champion Shannon Mac Millan.

Bobby Riggs is mid-remodel and staying open through construction. A 4.7 Google rating across 119 reviews. If you haven’t been to the Encinitas courts, the remodel is one more reason to go before it comes back even bigger.

The HUB: San Diego’s Purpose-Built Pickleball Arena

The HUB at 9545 Campo Road in Spring Valley is what happens when someone builds a facility from scratch for pickleball instead of converting what was already there.

Co-owner Ted Angelo looked at the math before breaking ground. Roughly 80 pickleball courts serving close to 50,000 players across San Diego County. “When this area of Spring Valley became available, we felt the need, and we went for it,” he told ABC 10News. Twenty-six dedicated outdoor courts. Two championship stadium courts. The main stadium has a 350-seat covered SkyLoft. Stadium 2 seats 150. Every court has LED lighting. Open until 11 PM on Mondays.

The details matter. San Diego-themed murals line the fences: a surfer, the Hotel del Coronado, the San Diego skyline. Angelo wanted players to feel ownership in their city. The pro shop carries a deep selection of premium demo paddles. There’s beer and wine. Adirondack chairs for spectating. Reviewers mention Olivia at the front desk being “super friendly” and helping navigate day passes. One player wrote that “the bathrooms are spotless,” which honestly says more about a facility than any court spec ever will.

Professional players Riley Newman and Lindsey Newman have played The HUB courts. The facility hosted the inaugural NCPA National Collegiate Pickleball Championship in March 2024 with 38 schools competing for a $30,000 prize pool. The World Pickleball Tour San Diego Open ran there in March 2026. CBS 8 featured The HUB when it opened. Non-member day passes are $20 for all-day play. Memberships start at $109 per month.

The HUB now has locations in Silicon Valley, Alameda, and Jacksonville. The San Diego facility is the original.

Why This Sport Eats People Alive (And Why That’s the Point)

I need to say something about pickleball that most articles about courts and clubs don’t say. This sport is addictive in a way that is genuinely hard to explain to someone who hasn’t played it.

You show up to try it once because a friend dragged you. You play four games. You lose three of them. You don’t care. You’re already texting your friend about tomorrow. Within a month you own two paddles, you’ve downloaded an app to track your DUPR rating, and you’re rearranging your Tuesday mornings around open play. Just one more game becomes the most dangerous sentence in your vocabulary.

The reason it hooks people is that it’s the most social competitive sport that exists. Tennis is a duel. Golf is a walk. Basketball requires being 22. Pickleball puts four strangers on a court the size of a living room and within 15 minutes they’re trash-talking each other about kitchen violations and making plans for Saturday. The round robin at Cays Park that ends at McP’s Pub isn’t an accident. That’s the sport working exactly as designed.

That culture is exactly why I started making pickleball shirts at Almost Seen On TV. The designs aren’t logos. They’re fake products that never existed. Electric Pickleball looks like a vintage energy drink from 1987. Smack Talklicious is a bubblegum pack for the person who talks more trash than they hit winners. Lobber Pops is a frozen treat for the player everyone pretends to hate and secretly respects. Foul Mouth Paste is a toothpaste tube for the player whose language gets worse with every missed third shot drop. They’re printed on Comfort Colors 1717 heavyweight blanks because the shirt should feel as good as the joke lands. Every one of these designs came from standing on a court and watching real people do real things. The Paddletudes Pickleball Personalities series takes it further: The Commissioner, The Coach, The Kitchen Cop, The Apologizer, The Banger. You know these people. You play with them every week. You might be one of them.

The point is that pickleball has developed its own culture fast enough that it already has its own inside jokes, its own archetypes, its own language. And San Diego, with nearly a hundred dedicated courts and a scene that ranges from a community park in Coronado to a 350-seat stadium in Spring Valley, is one of the cities where that culture runs deepest.

San Diego’s Tournament Calendar

The competitive calendar in San Diego runs year-round with a density that most metros outside of Florida can’t match.

When and where are the pickleball Nationals in 2026?

The 2026 Oceanview USA Pickleball National Championships take place at Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego from October 31 through November 8, 2026. Now in its 18th year, this is the sport’s longest-standing National Championship, returning for the second consecutive year. General admission spectator tickets are free. VIP and Championship Court seating presented by QVC are available. Off-site parking near SeaWorld is $10 per day with complimentary shuttle service.

The Coronado Island Marriott hosts APA tour events year-round: San Diego Open, Gold Cup, Amateur Open, Masters. Early-bird registration at $75. Skill levels 2.5 to 5.0, round-robin formatting, six-game guarantee. The Optimist Club of Coronado runs an annual pickleball tournament at Cays Park benefiting youth leadership programs. The NVZ Coronado Classic uses the Cays courts too. Smaller draws, but the ones where the real Coronado community shows up.

If you’ve been following the pickleball scene in other cities, you know Nashville built theirs around entertainment districts. Charlotte built theirs on sheer volume. San Diego’s version is defined by geography and variety. Cays Park in Coronado. Barnes in Point Loma. Bobby Riggs in Encinitas. The HUB in Spring Valley. Four facilities, four completely different vibes, four different communities, all within a 30-mile radius.

I’ve played courts up and down the coast of California. What San Diego has built is different from anywhere else I’ve seen. It’s not one mega-facility trying to be everything. It’s four distinct communities that each grew organically around their own people. Coronado’s scene exists because Tammy Carney showed up with a roll of tape in 2012 and Ken Irvine brought 40 years of community credibility to the coaching staff. Barnes exists because a nonprofit has been serving San Diego kids since 1953. Bobby Riggs exists because Steve and Jennifer Dawson saw what their tennis club could become and had the guts to transform it. The HUB exists because Ted Angelo looked at 50,000 players sharing 80 courts and built 26 more.

If you’re visiting and you only have time for one stop, drive across the Coronado Bridge, book a court at Cays Park for three bucks, and play where Tammy spent a decade taping lines before anyone poured the permanent ones. Then stay for the round robin. Then stay for the pub. That’s how this sport works. You think you’re going for one game.