Hardball Doubles Courts Construction on the Steep Ascent By Rob Dinerman
August 28, 2006-Perhaps
the most noticeable and dramatic phenomenon permeating the American
squash world these days has been the rapid and continuing
coast-to-coast construction of hardball doubles courts. Just in the
past two years, 20 such arenas have sprouted up or are on the verge or
in the process of doing so, whether as additions to facilities that
already offered doubles courts or as start-ups, whether in high-toned
private clubs or as highly promoted features of public commercial
facilities, and whether in long-established squash centers like
Philadelphia, San Francisco and New York or in much lower-key areas
like South Carolina, Georgia, Vermont (whose impending first-ever
doubles court will fill the current no-doubles-courts void between
Boston and Montreal) or Gum Spring, equidistant from Richmond and
Charlottesville, where such is the emphasis on doubles in racquet
sports (based on recent industry-wide surveys asserting that
recreational tennis is trending heavily in a "doubles" direction as
well) that the manager of the Wood'N'Racket Farm, which heretofore has
been a tennis-only facility, is arranging for both of the new squash
courts he is installing to be for hardball doubles.
This expansion is in marked contrast to the tepid atmosphere that
pervaded doubles squash in this country barely a decade ago, when there
had been a lengthy period during which not a single doubles court was
built and in fact a number of such courts were quietly done away with.
There were only a few scattered pro doubles tournaments on the schedule
on the WPSA pro tour and the slate of amateur events was similarly
limited both in number and attraction. The game appeared to be
stagnating, with a shrinking present and little apparent growth
potential for the future.
Possibly the remarkable turnaround the sport has experienced has been
at least in some measure driven by the unforeseen and noteworthy
early-2000's creation and almost-immediate flourishing state of the
International Squash Doubles Association (ISDA), a pro circuit boasting
well over a dozen stops and devoted ENTIRELY to competitive doubles
which (belying the brevity of its history) already offers enough
big-money ($ 50,000 to $ 100,000 in several instances) and high-profile
events to have drawn a number of top-tier PSA stars, including such
recent top-five performers as Jonathon Power, Chris Walker and Paul
Price. To the extent that the ISDA has been a significant cause of this
growth (and without question it has been at least a substantial
contributing factor), it constitutes a re-creation of the "Showcase Of
The Sport" role that the WPSA hardball singles tour (in the words back
then of WPSA President Clive Caldwell) played 30 years ago in the
marked increase on this continent of hardball singles courts during
that 1970's time frame.
But ironically in view of the
foregoing, in the opinion of many squash
aficionados, it was actually the takeover of singles squash by the
international game (at the expense of hardball and with the
accompanying demise of the WPSA) a decade or so ago in the United
States that has paradoxically serviced the growth of hardball doubles
and the consequent increase in the past few years of the number of
doubles courts. At the large majority of the clubs that have been
adding doubles courts (or in some cases installing them for the first
time), most of the emotional and (considerable) financial impetus has
come from the large middle-age (i.e. mid-30's to mid-50's) proportion
of the members who were former hardball players by background and
disposition, who weren't willing or able to make an enjoyable or
successful transition to softball, who badly wanted to keep competing
in whichever form of hardball squash was still available to them, and
who correctly perceived that in addition to representing the only means
left to them of accomplishing this latter goal, hardball doubles would
also provide the added benefit of offering a level of camraderie and
teamwork that would make their entire playing experience that much more
enjoyable in the process.
The fact that many of this group are at their peak earning power
professionally and to a substantial degree hold influential positions
in their respective clubs is clearly part of the scenario as well. This
dynamic does contain an element of "The Empire Strikes Back" and is
also a tangible example of the well known health- and exercise-devoted
orientation of the baby-boomer generation that characterizes modern
American society as a whole. But whatever its practical or
psychological genesis, there is no questioning the impact of the rise
of doubles-court construction on the larger squash picture in this
country.
At the University Club of Boston, for example, which hosts a
mid-January ISDA tour stop, there are three times as many softball
singles courts as there are doubles courts (six compared to two), yet
in a normal in-season workday there are more than twice as many
doubles-court bookings as there are singles-court bookings, as well as
a much more active in-house league and more and better-supported
doubles tournaments.
The New York Athletic Club, which actually did away with its doubles
court in the 1980's out of a sense (understandable at the time) that
doubles squash was permanently fading, undid that decision in 2004 by
constructing a beautiful glass-back-wall court which has already hosted
three editions of the ISDA Big Apple Open (other host ISDA sites on the
appended list include the University Club Of San Francisco, the
Maryland Club and Apawamis). At The Jonathan Club in Los Angeles, the
desire to host the (ultimately enormously well-attended and successful)
2006 Lapham-Grant tourney, an annual event matching the U. S. vs.
Canada in singles and doubles competition, last February spurred the
members to finance the replacement of the previously wood back wall
with a glass back wall in the one existing doubles court and to add a
second court as well.
And, most importantly in terms of the message it conveys about how
hardball doubles (which currently dwarfs the softball version of the
sport) has affected the mind-set of those looking to promote the game
as a whole and their own clubs in particular, it has now become the
case (and this was unthinkable as recently as five years ago) that
today no aspiring squash-club entrepreneur would commence building a
new club without making sure that a hardball doubles court was in the
floor plan. The new squash facilities (all of which are either under
construction or already "up") in such widely differing locales as
Minturn (near Vail, CO), Nantucket, King of Prussia (in suburban
Philadelphia), Charleston, SC, Rye, NY, South Hampton, Long Island City
(in Queens, NY), John's Island (in Florida) and Sea Island (in Georgia)
have all reflected this change in the squash landscape, as does the
decision by squash doubles and court tennis standout Sam Sammis to
include a doubles as well as a singles court in the Inn he owns as part
of an overall major real estate holding in Vermont.
Most of the foregoing have held or are planning to hold doubles
exhibitions and/or invitational tournaments to showcase their gleaming
new additions and to fuel their respective membership drives. Hardball
doubles squash is emphatically launching itself into the overall squash
and business picture in the United States, and the marked proliferation
of new courts springing up seemingly everywhere and at a dizzying pace
constitutes a tangible marker of that transformation.
New
Hardball Doubles Courts in the Past Two Years:
1) Minturn (near Vail) - Racquet & Trout Club
2) Nantucket -- Westmoor Club
3) Sea Island, Georgia- Sea Island
4) Vero Beach---The John's Island CLub
5) Charleston, S.C., Charleston Squash Racquets Club
6) Los Angeles - Jonathan Club - One court renovated and another court
built
7) San Francisco - University Club - 2nd court built
8) Westchester - Westchester CC
9) Southhampton, L.I. - Elmaleh/Stanton Squash Club ----court opening
this autumn
10) King of Prussia, PA - 2 courts set to be completed this fall at the
Fairmont CLub
11) Long Island City, NY - scheduled to build a court in the next six
months
12) Rye (NY) --- 2nd court due to break ground at the Apawamis Club in
Feb./March
13) Maryland Club-Planning to add a THIRD court in the next
year
14) Gum Spring (near Richmond)-Wood'N'Racket Farm, planning to install
two doubles courts by Dec. 1
15) Randolph, VT-The Three Stallions Inn, doubles court set for 2007
16) Marblehead (MA)-Leggs Hill YMCA (first U. S. YMCA to install a
doubles court), groundbreaking in Sept '06.
17) New York---The New York Athletic Club
18) San Francisco---Brand-new doubles court in the downtown clubhouse
of the Olympic Club