Pickleball Courts Open In Livingston City Park

The Livingston City Park pickleball courts are officially opened.

The pickleball courts replaced three old tennis courts. A fourth court remains a tennis court. Park Director Michael Hayes said he has not tried out the courts personally, but the new facilities are already popular.

“I look forward to playing, though,” Hayes said. “We had several here playing this morning. Probably, had 15, 16 people playing. I got the opportunity to go over and watch and get the feel for it, so I’m excited about playing myself.”

Several citizens interest in the need for pickleball courts. Hayes said the City Council and the Mayor came up with idea of the pickleball courts.

“They did a really good job with the project,” Hayes said. “They mentioned it to me, and we just kind of went with the flow with it, so the City Council and the mayor did a great job with that.”

The tennis court is still not open as the net is not expected to be in until Wednesday.

“We hope we get several different ages involved in coming over and playing,” Hayes said. “Like I said, they are newly constructed. Just happy for the community to have these.”

Hayes described pickleball as a combination of badminton and ping pong. In the game you use a paddle similar to a ping-pong paddle to hit a hollow plastic ball over a 36-inch net until one team fails to return it and a point is scored.

“Pickleball has been around a while,” Hayes said. “It’s fairly new to Livingston.”