Do you regularly trawl through Facebook, Instagram and multiple websites searching for your next pickleball tournament? Sam Pearce has come up with a time-saving solution.
Sam recently launched dinkingplanner.com – an aggregator of information about forthcoming pickleball events, both large and small, happening all over the globe.
It’s a no-frills platform that allows the user to search for events he or she may be interested via list, table, map or calendar format. Members can also filter all tournaments by geographic area.
The site is partially automated but also requires manual input from Sam to ensure it’s updated with prompt and correct information and those all-important entry links.
dinkingplanner founder Sam (pictured) is something of an anomaly – an American who discovered pickleball in the UK. Originally from Baltimore, he moved to Harrogate, North Yorkshire in 2021 to take a job in IT – and he will remain in the White Rose county until at least 2027 after recently extending his contract.
He was invited to play pickleball at Harrogate Pickleball Club, based at St John Fisher’s School, by a colleague. He says: “I gave it a shot and immediately fell in love with it!”
Sam had never played any racket sports before – just American football and baseball and as a goalkeeper for a five-a-side team.
He recalls: “At my first session in Harrogate, there were men and women who were quite a few years older than me who were straight schooling me left and right! It’s been a steep learning curve but I have hand-eye coordination from playing baseball as a kid which was an advantage.
“I’m in my 40s now and I thought my days of competitive sport were pretty much over, but this has really caught my imagination.”
Soon enough, Sam “started getting the itch” to test himself in pickleball tournaments. He went to 2022 English Open in Telford and travelled with his wife to Amsterdam to compete in the Dutch Open. Whilst at another event, he got talking with other British players.
Sam explains: “They were saying to me, ‘Did you go to this event or that one?’ I didn’t even know about them! Other than the Pickleball England website, it seemed there was nowhere to find out about competitions.
“We were relying on randomly seeing something posted on Facebook or getting into a conversation with someone who knew about an upcoming event. It was ridiculous.
“I thought to myself, I can fix this problem! I now go out and hit all these other sites and bring their information into mine and link back to their website. It doesn’t sound like a super complex problem, but so many people have said, ‘If only someone had thought of this sooner!'”
Sam says feedback since the site’s public launch in December has been hugely positive. dinkplanner.com has a distinct UK focus, but also promotes competitions in Europe, Asia, Africa and the USA.
Once users have created their own account, they can add their own events via the event forum. There is a certain threshold though. Sam laughs: “Beer league pickleball games in south west Kansas may not make the cut!”
