The Club at Forest Ridge has showcased one of the best of the best golf courses in the Tulsa, OK., area for some time, and it will soon have one of the best racquet facilities.
The club, which is managed by Bobby Jones Links, this month is set to open Phase 1 of a new climate-controlled Indoor Racquets Dome with other phases to follow. In the end, the club will have a completely new indoor tennis and pickleball center, complete with a pro shop and fitness center. For now, Forest Ridge will open a new dome that includes two indoor tennis courts as well as four pickleball courts to go with the club’s existing lighted outdoor amenities that include six tennis courts that are also lined for pickleball.
A Grand Opening event is scheduled for Sept. 19 – 21 at the new Indoor Racquets Dome with a full itinerary of fun events and competitions planned. Activities include:
The new indoor, climate-controlled Dome has been designed to attract both new members and to develop the finest racquet club in the region. When fully complete, The Club at Forest Ridge intends to have the most sought-after racquet facilities in the area.
“We’re focused on making our racquets program one of the premier programs in the region,” said Dave Carlisle, the club’s general manager. “By building this new facility in phases, I think we will grow our membership and give them a place they can really be proud to call home.”
The club, which serves both a private membership and daily-fee clientele, offers a resort-style community owned by Joe Robson. The thousand-acre development, with its green spaces and recreation, was named to the “Top 100 Places to Retire” list by Where to Retire magazine recently. The Randy Heckenkemper-designed golf course, which is 7,110-yard par 72, first opened in 1989. The Ridge Club, the hub of all the social and athletic amenities for the club, opened in 2019.
Plans to further develop the Racquet Sports Pavilion include designs for a new tennis pro shop, locker rooms, and fitness center and have been put on the drawing board with no specific timeline.
In addition to the added courts, a big part of the new and improved racquet sports program are the new staff members who have been brought on board. The club hired one of the best tennis minds in the area about a year and half ago when it named Ben Lott, a former Division I tennis player and coach at Drake University, as its director of racquet sports. In turn, Lott, who has lived in the Tulsa area for a number of years (he was a graduate assistant coach for the men’s team at the University of Tulsa), recently hired James Moore as its head pickleball professional. Together, with the addition of the new facilities, they are building up each sport at The Club at Forest Ridge.