Padel is penetrating UK sporting communities beyond its traditional tennis and squash clientele with golf clubs increasingly becoming a new area of expansion.
Padel United are due to start work shortly on a three-court padel facility at South Essex Golf Club in Brentwood, there are two padel courts at Trevose Golf & Country Club in Cornwall and many hotels and golf resorts in Spain have long recognised the benefits of diversifying into padel.
The Padel Paper understands that the R&A is among several golf national governing bodies looking at partnerships that could use padel to broaden their sport’s shrinking, ageing participation base.
In their attempts to attract more children and women into golf, the R&A have partnered with industry big-hitters Game4Padel in the development of a new family-focused, community golf venue at Lethamhill in Glasgow, due to open this summer.
The R&A’s plans for Lethamhill feature three covered padel courts that Game4Padel will install and operate, plus shorter-form golf courses, adventure golf and a 52-bay double-decker floodlit driving range.
“The R&A could have chosen any other sporting activity in the world to diversify the new facility at Lethamhill, so from our point of view it was very exciting that they decided on padel,” Game4Padel CEO Michael Gradon told The Padel Paper.
“We’d always thought that golf courses and driving ranges were fairly obvious candidates for padel. Originally, all our locations were at tennis venues – and deliberately so because tennis players are the obvious first adopters – but we are now looking a lot more at golf because tennis clubs have intrinsic challenges.”
No-one in the padel court industry will have escaped the roadblocks associated with planning permission. With tennis clubs mostly situated in residential areas, proposed padel projects are often knocked back by local authorities on the grounds of noise pollution and visual impact.
Almost as common are the internal politics at tennis clubs whenever padel courts are proposed, particularly if projects involve cannibalising of existing tennis courts.
Gradon also explains further complications with padel projects in tennis club territory. “For our model to work, where we fund, build and run padel courts ourselves, we need to drive utilisation to a level which goes beyond the existing membership.
“We have to quite careful in choosing clubs who are outward-looking, genuinely want to promote padel, warmly welcome new people and make them feel comfortable.”
Golf clubs alleviate a lot of these pitfalls. They are generally out of town and not surrounded by houses, reducing the chances of problems with planning permission. They usually have more available space and golf members are likely to view padel with curiosity and fascination, rather than the threat it is perceived as by some within tennis.
“I keep emphasising that padel is a sport for all ages and I absolutely believe that to be the case, but golfers are definitely low-hanging fruit for padel,” states Gradon.
“Most will be ‘sporty’ and padel has obvious attractions for people whose hips or knees won’t allow them to run around a squash or tennis court any more.”
Gradon revealed that Game4Padel has already signed up with one of the UK’s biggest golf driving ranges and are in discussions with “a large number” of other golf venues. The diversification of padel venues into golf looks set to continue apace.
