By Mary Thurwachter
Manalapan doesn’t have pickleball courts — although some tennis courts at the five-star Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa have occasionally been transformed for special events. But that could change if the resort decides to permanently turn one of its three tennis courts into two pickleball courts.
And neighbors at La Coquille community adjacent to the resort have concerns about that.
Noise is a key worry, because anyone who knows anything about the nation’s fastest-growing sport knows pickleball is a boisterous affair.
A hybrid of Ping-Pong, tennis and racquetball, pickleball looks different from tennis, and some claim the continuous pop-pop-pop of the hard-surfaced paddle hitting the plastic ball is disruptive.
One of those people is Beverley Murphy, who lives in La Coquille and had a ringside seat to the pop-pop-popping in February when the Eau hosted a four-day pickleball event.
She counted 30-plus pickleball players on all three tennis courts from 3 to 5:30 p.m. and said that when used for tennis, those courts would have had a maximum of 12 players.
The noise far exceeded what would normally happen on a tennis court, Murphy said. “And there was the customary shouting after every point.”
She used a sound meter app on her phone, and it often registered more than 65 decibels. Police came, after she called them, but by that time there were only eight players and the town’s sound meter registered 57 decibels.
Manalapan’s noise ordinance says you can’t exceed 65 decibels at 50 feet.
Experts say the noise made by hitting a tennis ball is in the low frequencies, below the zone to which humans are most sensitive. A pickleball strike, however, has a higher pitch, meaning our ears catch more of the noise it makes. That higher frequency makes the clamor of pickleball clearer from farther away compared with tennis.
Murphy and many of her neighbors at La Coquille say Manalapan needs to address the issue and put an ordinance in place to mitigate the sound and limit the number of players and people gathering on public or commercial courts.
At their May 23 meeting, town commissioners heard from hotel representatives, including Tim Nardi, the Eau’s general manager, who said the resort had a group of guests this year who wanted pickleball to be part of their experience.
Nardi said that after last year’s flooding, the tennis courts at the Eau were destroyed and have been restored for between $55,000 and $60,000.
“As part of that process, we also had group business that was in the hotel, and one group in February did ask for a temporary pickleball court. We also had another group that took nearly every hotel room and they asked that their executives be allowed a temporary pickleball court. We allowed that.”
The resort, he said, recognizes that pickleball is an up-and-coming sport and wants to be considerate to its tennis players and others as to the noise and what could be done for noise abatement. He brought along Jeff McClure from Fast-Dry Courts, a Pompano Beach firm that builds courts for both tennis and pickleball.
Nardi said he didn’t have a plan or cost estimates on building pickleball courts. “This would be something in the future that we might want to talk about,” he said.
“If we did anything,” Nardi said of the resort’s three tennis courts, “we’d probably take one tennis court, keep it a tennis court, but convert it so it could also be used as two pickleball courts.”
McClure said pickleball bridges the gap of many demographics and ages because it’s so easy to pick up. With pickleball comes more conversation, thus more noise, he said.
“The wear and tear of tennis on the body as you get older can become more harsh, and pickleball will minimize the running and still keep you active,” McClure said.
The noise, which he said is primarily the plastic ball hitting the paddle, from 100 feet away registers at about 70 decibels, the equivalent to traffic on nearby State Road A1A.
“When you add in the mitigation of a soundproof barrier,” McClure said, “it takes it down to 60 decibels, the same decibel level of a common conversation.”
If you add landscaping buffers, that can reduce the level to 50 decibels, the equivalent of white noise, he said.
The mitigation system, McClure said, is a soundproofing screen that affixes to the fence. He suggests that a screen be on the south side to send noise away from the homes and back toward the players and resort. He also recommends a partial wraparound screening which would bounce the sound back toward traffic. Another recommendation is a quilted mat that absorbs noise.
USA Pickleball, the game’s governing association, is working on developing balls and paddles that reduce the noise, McClure said — although changing those things could affect the play.
Town Manager Linda Stumpf said staff had reached out to six municipalities to see what implications pickleball has had and what sound-mitigating strategies are available. Of the six municipalities that responded, only one, Gulf Stream, had sound measures in place. Another three commented on how popular the courts were.
The discussion at the May 23 commission meeting, Stumpf advised, “was just informational.”
Mayor Stewart Satter said the Eau had always been a good neighbor and he thought the town would be able to work out a plan that would be amenable to all parties involved.
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