Irvine's Pickleball Boom Just Split Into Two Systems, and Woodbridge Has Both
"You could feel how excited people were," Tuan Nguyen said, standing courtside at Mike Ward Community Park on the afternoon of February 3. Nguyen, a Woodbridge resident, had arrived about an hour before the ribbon-cutting for Irvine's newest pickleball courts, and by the time the ribbon came down, the pop of paddle against ball was already echoing across the park. "Everyone, young and old, wanted to come out and play," he said. "I was excited to be part of the first game."
Among the roughly 200 people who showed up that day was Harshavardhan Atmakur, a former tennis player who switched to pickleball two years earlier and had recently won a gold medal at a California Pickleball Association tournament. Standing on one of the eight new lighted courts, he said he wanted to show his kids "it's never too late to get better and compete."
The city called it a milestone, and for a single afternoon, that was true. But the more interesting fact about Irvine's pickleball expansion in 2026 isn't the courts that opened in February. It's the second, separate expansion now scheduled in the same village, run by a different organization, under different rules, arriving by the end of the same year. Woodbridge is on track to have two independent pickleball systems within walking distance of each other, and which one governs your Saturday morning depends entirely on which side of the property line you're standing on.
The eight courts at Mike Ward Community Park came with more than paddles and nets. The project added four shade structures, picnic tables, benches and hydration stations, along with lighting improvements, restroom upgrades and landscape and irrigation work across the park's 22 acres. Mayor Larry Agran framed the expansion as a response to demand, saying the courts "will serve an important role in meeting demand for more space to play." Chris Slama, the city's director of community and library services, called it "a huge milestone for the community" and noted the project reflected years of resident requests.
Mike Ward wasn't an isolated addition. As of 2026, Irvine maintains roughly 30 dedicated pickleball courts spread across its community and neighborhood parks, a number that has climbed steadily as the sport's popularity has grown statewide. The city also runs seasonal instructional sessions at Portola Springs Community Park, Heritage Community Park and San Carlo Neighborhood Park, with winter 2026 sessions bookable through yourirvine.org. That's the baseline: a citywide, publicly funded buildout that touches multiple villages, not just Woodbridge.
What makes Woodbridge different is what's happening in parallel, on the other side of a fence the city doesn't control.
While the city was cutting ribbons at Mike Ward, the Woodbridge Village Association, the private homeowners association that runs recreation facilities for the surrounding neighborhood, was finalizing its own pickleball expansion a short distance away at North Lake Tennis Club. Four pickleball courts already operate there, two of them reservable in advance and two available on a first-come basis by signing up on a chalkboard, with play capped at 90 minutes and hours running 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.
The association's board has now authorized three additional courts on what's known as court 4, and the plan includes something Mike Ward doesn't have: Pickleglass, a 13-foot-tall tempered glass enclosure designed to contain the sound of paddle strikes, a detail that speaks to the noise complaints that have followed pickleball's rapid growth in tightly packed suburbs nationwide. At its November 19, 2025 meeting, the board agreed to delay construction until fall 2026 while it continues to study options for sound mitigation. The renovation also folds in restroom and lounge upgrades, nine additional parking spaces and accessibility improvements.
There's a smaller but immediately practical wrinkle for anyone who already plays at North Lake. As of November 3, 2025, the association switched its court reservation platform from ClubClix to CivicRec. Old ClubClix logins no longer work, and members need a new CivicRec account before they can book a court online.
| Mike Ward Community Park (City of Irvine) | North Lake Tennis Club (Woodbridge Village Association) | |
|---|---|---|
| Access | Open to the public | Members and their guests only |
| Courts open now | 8 lighted courts, opened February 3, 2026 | 4 courts, 2 reservable online |
| Courts coming | None currently planned | 3 more, construction expected fall 2026 |
| Booking system | yourirvine.org | CivicRec, replacing ClubClix as of Nov. 2025 |
| Hours | Park hours, 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily | 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily |
The two systems don't compete so much as stack. A Woodbridge resident who wants a free, lit court with no login can walk to Mike Ward. A Woodbridge homeowner who's also an association member gets a second, separate option a short distance away, one with its own rules about walk-up play, its own hardware for blocking noise, and its own construction calendar.
If you live inside Woodbridge's association boundary, by winter you'll have two independent pickleball systems operating within a few minutes of each other, one funded by the city and open to anyone, one funded by association dues and limited to members. That's not the case everywhere in Irvine. A resident of Turtle Rock or University Park, villages without a private recreation association running its own court program, only has the public side of that equation. That's part of why the city's free instructional sessions at Portola Springs, Heritage and San Carlo carry more weight in those villages than they do in Woodbridge specifically, where the private layer is already picking up slack the city doesn't need to cover.
The city's growth is real and it's citywide. The private layer isn't, and it shows up only where an association has both the reserve funds and the incentive to build it. Woodbridge, with its lakes, shopping center and existing tennis infrastructure at North Lake, happened to have both at the same moment the city was already investing in Mike Ward. That overlap, not the court count itself, is the part of this story that's easy to miss if you only read the city's press release.
A few things worth knowing if you're deciding where to play. At Mike Ward, no reservation is required for casual walk-up play, and the courts stay lit within regular park hours, 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. At North Lake, remember that old ClubClix credentials won't get you a booking anymore. You'll need to set up a CivicRec account first. And once fall construction begins on the court 4 expansion, expect at least one existing court to be out of rotation while the Pickleglass enclosure goes in, so it's worth checking the association's posted schedule before you make the walk over.
Between the two, Woodbridge residents are looking at more pickleball access than almost anywhere else in the city by the time both projects are finished, not because either project set out to outdo the other, but because a public park upgrade and a private club renovation happened to land in the same village in the same calendar year.
If your own corner of Irvine has something similar taking shape, a court, a trail, a park upgrade the city hasn't put out a press release about yet, the Christina Shaw Group would like to hear about it. Ground-level detail like this is exactly what helps build a fuller picture of how Irvine's villages actually spend their Saturdays.
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