Free Pickleball Courts in Mount Pleasant, SC

Why this matters here

Three of Mount Pleasant's four venues are free, and the Town says so under each one rather than leaving it to be assumed. Park West Gym: "Drop-in play is free." The Deb Gym at Town Hall: the same sentence. Miriam Brown Community Center: "Drop-in play is free and first come, first served." Park West Tennis Courts: "Drop-in play is first come first served and free." Eighteen of the town's nineteen courts are on this page: ten at Park West, four at the Deb Gym, four at Miriam Brown. Between them they carry every scheduled session in Mount Pleasant except the Senior Center's afternoons. A parks department that does not charge for a court rarely thinks to write down that it is free, and Mount Pleasant wrote it down four times. It is one of seven cities on this site with a free court. Free here comes with conditions the Town states in the same paragraph. In the gyms you must sign in, and you play at the session times and not otherwise. Paddles and balls are never provided at a free venue.

What puts a venue on this list

A venue appears here when the Town of Mount Pleasant states that drop-in play on it costs nothing. Three qualify. Park West qualifies twice over, because the Town prices both of its entries at the same address with the word free: the gym under Indoor and the tennis courts under Outdoor. The Deb Gym at Town Hall qualifies on "Drop-in play is free." Miriam Brown Community Center qualifies on "Drop-in play is free and first come, first served." The Senior Center is excluded, and deliberately. Its court is "free for members of the Senior Center" and a guest fee for everyone else, "$5 for Mt. Pleasant residents and $10 for those residing outside of Mt. Pleasant", and play is for people 50 and older. Free for a member is not free for the public. That is a closer call than it looks: it is the one Mount Pleasant venue that provides paddles and balls as well as the net, so for a member it is the cheapest court in town.

Are these courts really free?

Yes, in the Town's words under each entry: "Drop-in play is free." This site describes a venue as free only when the operator writes it, and Mount Pleasant does, for three venues and both halves of Park West.

Is a net free too?

In the gyms it is provided. Outdoors it is lent on weekdays, from the Program Building at Park West or the G.M. Darby Building at Miriam Brown; outside those hours bring your own.

Are the clinics free?

No. Clinics are $50 for residents and $80 for non-residents, and private lessons are priced by the hour. Those are lesson prices; the courts themselves cost nothing.