Net games are fun to play at the beach but do the sunny, sandy environment work for all kinds of games? Can you play pickleball on the beach?

You can easily set up the court for a number of net games by simply putting up a net and having fun, but not all games work out that easily.

You cannot play pickleball on the beach, because the ball has to bounce on the server, and any shots that land in the kitchen have to bounce before the players can hit them. Because pickleball balls are made of plastic, they don’t bounce in the sand at all.

The beach isn’t a great place for a game like a pickleball if you’re playing in the sand, though it can work well if a court is built specifically for net games.

We looked into how the rules of the game influence what kind of court you need to set up and devised our opinion based on that information.

Factors That Affect Court

The beach is really a very rough and haphazard substitute for most game courts. While this is passable for some games, it is not the same for others. For pickleball, there are plenty of things to take into consideration when it comes to whether or not the beach is acceptable as a court.

The Ball

The ball used in pickleball is made of plastic and is the wiffle-style ball that’s on the heavier end. These balls don’t bounce that well on sand, since they will just sink down. This is especially true since the ball has holes in it that will simply let the sand through and the ball will stay in one place.

Because the entire game relies heavily on the fact that the ball has to bounce for you to play, this makes it outright impossible to play pickleball on sand – and therefore, hard to play on the beach.

Movement

Pickleball is a very fast game, and you have to hit the ball at exact speeds if you want to have any chance at winning. It is a lot more difficult to move around on the sand, which slips out from under your feet than it is to move around on a hard, paved court. This makes pickleball on the beach a lot harder, if not totally impossible.

Replacement Court

Most often, since you can’t play pickleball in the sand, most people will choose to borrow a badminton or tennis court which has a paved ground for the game instead. Of course, the courts are not the same, and you have to make some adjustments (for example, you have to lower the net until it touches the ground).

On that end, though, since the ground is most likely going to be concrete or asphalt, it is likely that the temperatures are going to be very high. While playing a game as fast as pickleball, you’re likely going to lose a lot of water.

If you do plan on playing pickleball at the beach on a replacement court, you’ll have to make sure to constantly keep rehydrating yourself and replenishing your electrolytes.

Beach Wear

Most people, when playing any sort of game at the beach, will be dressed for the location. While this can work for some more straightforward games like beach volleyball or badminton, it doesn’t work as well for pickleball. Not only do you need the right dressing, but you also need to be wearing shoes with the right level of support.

You can wear a bathing suit and a shirt to play pickleball if you really want to play it at the beach, but it is best to wear clothes that won’t cause problems or malfunction mid-game. It’s also important to apply sunscreen to any area of exposed skin since you’d be directly under the sun for so long.

Sandy Pickle

You can’t play pickleball on the sand, but there is a new variation of the game with some changes in its rules, made solely for the purpose of playing on softer ground, like sand or soil.

The court for sandy pickle is much smaller than the one for regular pickleball since it’s a lot more difficult to move around as fast on softer ground than it is on a hard court.

The biggest concern around pickleball on the softer ground is the inability of the ball to bounce. This problem is addressed by bending the rules a bit to make the game a volley-only game. This means that every shot has to be returned to the other side without hitting the ground.

For this, the net has to be shifted to a higher position, because with the net kept as low as it is in regular pickleball, kill shots become way too easy.

The kitchen is also shifted from 7’ from the net to 5’ from the net instead (to account for the smaller court). The return for every serve should also be made from behind the kitchen line, which is similar to how the rules work for regular pickleball.

So, while you can’t play pickleball on the beach, you can play it at the beach if you can find a replacement court. You can also play sandy pickle instead, but you’ll have to make sure you know exactly how sandy pickle differs from regular pickleball. Without the changes in mind, you might end up making a mistake and your team may lose.