Pickleball Courts in Irvine, CA

The City of Irvine publishes nothing about parking at any of these three parks. The word appears on none of its pickleball, court regulations or park pages.

What each park page carries instead is an acreage and an amenity list, and those say what kind of site you are arriving at. Mike Ward Community Park is approximately 22 acres, with lighted basketball and racquetball courts, a sand volleyball court and three restrooms. Portola Springs Community Park is approximately 32 acres, with a community centre, lighted softball fields, soccer fields and tennis courts, and two restrooms. Heritage Community Park is the largest at approximately 36.5 acres, with twelve lighted tennis courts, a lake, a splash pad and four restrooms. A lot, a fee or a permit is stated at none of them.

Irvine states no peak times. What it states instead is how a court is shared. All three parks are open 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, and every one of the eighteen courts is lit, so the window is sixteen hours long and does not shrink at dusk. The court regulations say: "Open courts are on a first-come, first-serve basis. Please use the waiting board where available." When others are waiting, doubles is limited to 60 minutes and singles to 30, warm-up included. If nobody is waiting you may carry on.

Four courts run on a different clock. Courts #3 and #4 at Mike Ward and Courts #5 and #6 at Portola Springs can be reserved online "between the hours of 7 a.m. to noon, and 4 to 10 p.m.", in one- or two-hour blocks. Residents may book five days ahead and non-residents three. When nobody has booked them these courts revert to drop-in play. City sponsored programmes have priority over all other use.

The City names no surface for any pickleball court in Irvine, on the park pages, the regulations page or the pickleball page. What it does write, consistently, is the word lit. Each count appears twice, as "eight lit pickleball courts" on the pickleball page and "8 Lighted Pickleball Courts" in the park's amenity list, and the same pairing holds for the six at Portola Springs and the four at Heritage.

All eighteen are counted as pickleball courts. The City lists hybrid tennis and pickleball courts at other parks, including Heritage, but gives only a city-wide total for them, so none is added to any venue here. On a tennis court the regulations are explicit: "Tennis courts are designated solely for tennis use", and if tennis players arrive "those playing pickleball or badminton must vacate the court". Tennis shoes are required on every City court.

Eighteen courts across three parks, every one lit in the City's own word, every park open 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Irvine is the first California city on this site. Courts #3 and #4 at Mike Ward Community Park and Courts #5 and #6 at Portola Springs Community Park can be booked at "Resident Rate: $17/hr" and "Non-Resident Rate: $19/hr". The other fourteen courts are first come, first served and the City states no price for them.

The City runs junior, adult and private lessons at all three parks through contract instructors, and a league, Irvine Team Pickleball, at Portola Springs: eight teams, a seven-week round robin and three-week playoffs, self-rated at 3.5, $490 per team per season. The City also says it "is evaluating building pickleball courts at the Great Park".