Charles Barkley says he's 'not stupid enough to play pickleball'
Last Edited
May 15 2025
Category
News
Charles Barkley took a shot at pickleball this week while explaining why he chose golf as his preferred sport later in life.
After broadcasting the NBA playoffs Tuesday night on the desk of TNT’s "Inside the NBA," Barkley took a 7 a.m. flight to Birmingham so he could take part in a golf pro-am ahead of The Tradition, the first major of the PGA Champions Tour season.
Barkley played alongside former Alabama football coach Nick Saban and pro golfer Stewart Cink, and then flew back to Atlanta so he’d be ready for TV once again on Wednesday night.
But before he went back to his broadcasting job, Barkley took some time on the course to discuss why he chose golf over pickleball as his sport of choice after a 16-year career in the NBA.
Charles Barkley has been busy 😳
— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) May 14, 2025
-@NBAonTNT goes off air at 2 a.m. in Atlanta, GA
-Goes back to hotel, 6 a.m. alarm
-Leaves hotel at 6:30 a.m.
-Flight leaves at 7 a.m. for Birmingham, AL
-Arrives for 8:50 a.m. @RegionsTrad
-Plays 18 holes with Nick Saban and Stewart Cink
-Flies… pic.twitter.com/ipfKVxztuj
“Golf is interesting. It’s fun. It’s exciting,” Barkley said. “It’s one of the few sports you can play as you get older. I’m not stupid enough to try and play pickleball. That’s just stupid. But golf is one of the few sports you can play as you get older. It’s something you can do with your kids. It’s something you can do with your grandkids hopefully one day. It’s a very special game.”
It wasn't pointed out to Barkley during the interview that much of the same can be said about pickleball, but he continued:
“The problem with pickleball is I don’t like playing with old people," said Barkley, who himself is nearing retirement age at 62. "When I go to the gym, I don’t want to play with no 80-year-olds.”
It's not the first time Barkley has age-shamed pickleball players. In 2023 he questioned whether then-Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone should be playing pickleball.
“Pickleball’s for old people,” Barkley said at the time. “That’s not a young man’s sport. That’s an old man and old woman sport … it’s a bunch of old people.”
We're guessing he's never watched a PPA Tour match or seen any points like this one.
He's probably also never looked into statistics from the Sports and Fitness Industry Association that suggest pickleball is getting younger every year. According to an SFIA report released in November, people in the 25-34 age range accounted for 16.7% of all players in 2024.
The second largest age bracket was 65 and over, as those players made up 15.4% of total participants. Players between 18-24 were third at 13.3% and there were 1 million players under the age of 18 who started playing last year.
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