Southern Pickleball Championships draw more than 1,200 participants from across the country to Macon

Macon played host to one of the largest pickleball tournaments ever last weekend, as the Southern Pickleball Championships unfolded over three days at Rhythm and Rally with more than 1,000 players.

Southern Pickleball runs tournaments across the South, hosting competitions in nine different states last year. The Championships acted as an invitational for anyone who won a medal at a Southern Pickleball event this year.

Folks came in droves to play at the state-of-the-art pickleball facility in West Macon. The tournament drew more than 1,200 players and saw 2,697 matches played between Friday and Sunday, according to Southern Pickleball co-founder Paul Midkiff.

“We want Macon to become the Augusta of pickleball,” Midkiff said, referencing the monolithic status of the signature northeast Georgia golf course. “And the way this went, it’s just going to get bigger. Macon has a draw to it.”

Midkiff said the bulk of the tournament’s matches took place Saturday and Sunday, with Saturday’s contests starting at 7 a.m. and running all day. Some games did not begin until 10 p.m. that night. There were a whopping 86 brackets to compete in.

The tournament was a tourism boon for Macon, which has drawn bigger and bigger crowds for pickleball since the facility opened in the old Macon Mall off Eisenhower Parkway. 

“As a Macon person, I remember when that spot that Rhythm and Rally is in now was the Belk,” Midkiff said. “I remember buying back to school clothes there. To come back to it and see it so crowded and kind of transformed is a really neat experience.”

Southern Pickleball also spread the word at each of its tournaments, always telling medal winners that their win earned them eligibility for the Championships.

The Rhythm and Rally parking lot was packed out Saturday and Sunday. Competitors, when they finished their matches for the day, ventured downtown in search of food and drink; pickleball gear from states like Tennessee and Mississippi could be spotted on Cherry Street Saturday evening.

The final numbers on the tournament’s tourism impact haven’t come back yet, but Midkiff expects some pretty significant numbers for Macon.

“We were staying at the Garner hotel (on Zebulon), and it was fully booked out. There were a lot of pickleball people there,” Midkiff said. “I don’t think we know the final data and everything yet, but I’m sure it generated well over half a million dollars.”

After the huge tournament went off pretty much without a hitch, and factoring in Rhythm and Rally’s past successes with other tournaments last year, the facility and Macon’s pickleball stardom seem poised for growth. Macon’s other pickleball locations offer some additional benefits, too.

“Even with the beautiful courts over at Tattnall, you have something that will draw people. A lot of people really want to play outside — maybe not on a day like this, but when it gets nice outside in March or April,” Midkiff said one frigid January morning. “With the Tattnall courts, you can play there outside, and if weather is an issue you can move games over to Rhythm and Rally. This is one of the only places I’ve seen it where you could have both.”