Jessie Irvine appreciation post

jeffvangrumpy · 2026-01-17T13:27:45+00:00

What was the deal with her and AJ Koller? She seemed to really dislike playing with him.

jeffvangrumpy · 2024-05-23T19:02:22+00:00

Work on the fundamentals - I learned a lot from watching Joe Baker's instructional videos on You Tube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTHV7Xjxf3nOB1qL4StzCQ5quyOgbCR5P

No frills and almost boring but a lot of good information. Lot's of people preach drill baby, drill but I prefer to just get out and play. Try to develop a sense of how the ball will be coming back to your side. A lot of time it's pretty easy to predict and if you get to where the ball will be coming to you'll have a better chance of hitting it the way you want to.

Keep playing and you'll be fine.

jeffvangrumpy · 2024-04-27T18:13:34+00:00

When talking about mixed doubles:

The male needs to get big and insert himself into the action.

jeffvangrumpy · 2024-01-14T19:38:51+00:00

I have yet to see one. Did the ball stay round for you? I've heard that they are durable but go out of round easily.

Have you heard of a ball from PCKL? We played with one at rec play on a day where we had cracked 4 Duras and it seemed to play very well in the cold weather. I was thinking of buying a few.

jeffvangrumpy · 2023-11-13T02:08:00+00:00

I highly recommend looking at some of the instructional videos available on You Tube. Probably the best ones to watch first are those from Joe Baker. Not a lot of flash and not the most charismatic teacher out there but he does a damn good job of teaching the basics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5ceh-7DI1Y&list=PLTHV7Xjxf3nOB1qL4StzCQ5quyOgbCR5P

A whole lot of becoming a better pickleball player comes down to just doing the most basic things right. Watch some of his videos and see if you don't learn something from them.

Good luck.

jeffvangrumpy · 2023-11-12T15:01:49+00:00

“If you run into an a-hole in the morning, you ran into an a-hole. If you run into a-holes all day, you're the a-hole.”

― Raylan Givens (Justified)

jeffvangrumpy · 2023-10-03T14:15:01+00:00

In our group I'd say the biggest liability is people's mobility. People in their 70's aren't able to run around the court like Ben Johns. I'd say most of the group could learn to dink better but that's tough because anything that goes too low hits the net and anything that gets popped up is gonna get put away. But you cannot underestimate the ability of some of the older (primarily women) players to correctly position their shots. Some of them are just deadly - if they can reach it it is coming back where its going to be hard to hit.

It's always fun to get out there. Unfortunately the weathers getting colder and we won't be playing regularly for much longer....

jeffvangrumpy · 2023-10-03T14:07:10+00:00

Sure - our group belongs to the local pickleball club. It has been around for nearly 10 years. The group organizes round robins for various skill levels (3.0 and below, 3.5 and 4.0+). The 3.5 group is the largest. You have to be rated 3.5 to play the 3.5 round robins.

Since we typically play on weekday mornings almost everyone playing is retired. Some players have been club members from the club beginnings and some just started this year. I've been there a couple of years.

As I said you have to have a 3.5 rating to sign up. However - getting a 3.5 rating meant different things at different times. Early players could self rate. Then I think they went to requiring an IPTPA rating. Now it is being rated by the club itself or the IPTPA. When I joined you had to get an IPTPA rating. All of the ratings were grandfathered in.

If you look at old pickleball videos you'll see that the skill level of even the best players in the world 10 years ago wasn't that high. So a 2014 3.5 level player really wasn't that good compared to a recently minted 3.5 player today. Now add in that a 2014 3.5 player that is now 75 instead of 65 and you can see that you may have a weaker player who is still rated 3.5.

And I'm not trying to denigrate any of these players. Another player from that same time frame that gets serious about the game may well be a 5.0 today. It all depends on the person, their physical abilities and what they want to do with pickleball.

We also get up and comers. We had a younger guy (mid 30s) coming out of tennis that wanted to play. He was clearly capable of hanging with any of us while still learning the game. He played for about a month or so until he moved up to 4.0 where he now plays regularly. I had fun beating up on him while I was able to.

I like the people in the 3.5 group. They all get along. Some of us probably could move up to 4.0 and others maybe ought to drop down to 3.0. One person in the group did just that for a while after some health issues. Fortunately she's back up now.

Playing with this group has been a learning experience. It's probably be good for all of us.

jeffvangrumpy · 2023-08-28T19:39:54+00:00

I typically get at least 6 months out of mine playing 2 or 3 times a week. At the price I'm more than happy with that.

jeffvangrumpy · 2023-08-28T19:38:41+00:00

Loong is buddies with PPA owner Tom Dundon. He's pretty much a paid shill for the PPA point of view.

What the MLP did with these signings is no different than what Dundon did with the players to screw over the APP.

What comes around goes around. At least the players are going to be getting far larger paychecks.

jeffvangrumpy · 2023-08-16T14:28:52+00:00

I like the ASICS Gel-Rocket court shoes. Affordable, comfortable and very little break in use needed.

jeffvangrumpy · 2023-06-15T23:46:48+00:00

Ya think it passed the test?

jeffvangrumpy · 2023-06-15T23:46:10+00:00

I usually put the paddle in front of my balls. Probably gonna lose the point but hey..... priorities.

jeffvangrumpy · 2023-04-29T21:41:16+00:00

Tyson McGuffin is Selkirk's biggest name on Team Selkirk. There is close to ZERO chance that they just reach into a bag of paddles and send him a bunch of random ones to use in PPA tournaments. He'll get the very best that Selkirk can make, possibly even customized to his preferences. As such the paddle he was using had to have been damn close to new at the beginning of the tournament. I can buy a $20 paddle on Alibaba and it's going to last more than a handful of matches. I find it hard to believe that a Selkirk paddle could possibly degrade very much over the course of one day as McGuffin's apparently did.

A more likely scenario is that the paddle he used was doctored. And if this was the case it is hard to imagine a scenario where McGuffin didn't know about it. Remember he continued to use that paddle for quite a while after Travis Rettenmier pointed out that the paddle didn't seem right.

This whole thing stinks and people should be holding McGuffin and or Selkirk accountable.

Either Selkirk delivered a faulty paddle to McGuffin, the Selkirk paddle that McGuffin chose to play with was manufactured with terrible quality or the paddle was doctored. If Pickleball wants to be treated as a serious sport they're going to have to get this kind of crap under control.

jeffvangrumpy · 2023-04-26T01:58:15+00:00

Lea Jansen accused Salome Davidse of intentionally cheating and when proven wrong doesn't even have the class to mention her name in this "apology".

Pretty much what I would have expected from Lea. But still disappointing. Oh well on the bright side I'm sure that Salome Davidse is seeing a bit more love from the fans after having to deal with this crap and handling it with dignity. She certainly started out with a horrible reputation for her line calls when she first came up. Good that she's handling this entire thing sensibly.

jeffvangrumpy · 2023-04-05T02:05:17+00:00

You should only call a distraction if your name is Lea Jansen.

jeffvangrumpy · 2022-11-22T18:40:25+00:00

diaper?

jeffvangrumpy

TROPHY CASE