Fort Wayne Padel: Indiana's First Outdoor Court
Fort Wayne Padel: Indiana's First Outdoor Court
A 1908 private club just put Northeast Indiana on the padel map.
A 1908 Club Bets on Padel
Fort Wayne Country Club has anchored the southwest side of Fort Wayne since 1908 — 355 acres, a Scottish-style championship golf course, and a racquet program that has quietly been the strongest in Northeast Indiana for decades. In spring 2026 it added something no other club in the state had: an outdoor padel court.
The claim is worth stating precisely, because the details matter. Indiana already had padel — NorthPoint Padel opened two indoor courts in Westfield in January 2026. What Fort Wayne Country Club built is the state's first outdoor padel court, and the first court of any kind in Indiana's northeast corner. For a region whose nearest padel was a two-hour drive down I-69, that is a real change.
The Court and the Program
Fort Wayne Country Club
A historic private club on Covington Road that has spent a century as a golf institution and the last few decades building one of the deepest racquet programs in the region. The padel court is the newest piece — a single outdoor build, and the first of its kind in the state.
Address: 5221 Covington Road, Fort Wayne, IN 46804 | Phone: (260) 432-2581
Courts: 1 | Type: Outdoor
The court was constructed by padel specialist Off The Glass, and it sits inside a racquet operation that was already busy. The club runs eight tennis courts — three indoor under a seasonal winter dome, five lighted outdoor — plus pickleball programming with mixers, lessons, and clinics. That context matters more than the court count. Country club padel rarely has to recruit players from scratch; it converts tennis and pickleball members who already show up on a Saturday morning.
The practical limits are worth being clear about. This is a members-only facility, so there is no public booking, no drop-in, and no hourly rate to look up — access runs through membership or a member's invitation. And because the court is outdoor in a city that averages winter lows in the teens, the usable season realistically runs spring through fall. The glass and turf handle cold fine; players do not.
Why Country Clubs Keep Adding Padel
Fort Wayne is not an outlier. Piedmont Driving Club in Atlanta, The Tuxedo Club in New York, Philadelphia Cricket Club, and John Newcombe Country Club in Texas have all added courts, and the list grows every quarter. The logic is consistent: a padel court occupies a fraction of a tennis court's footprint, seats four players instead of two, and takes a beginner from first swing to a competitive game in a single session. For a club measuring return on square footage and member engagement per hour, that math is hard to argue with. We covered the full trend in Why Country Clubs Are Adding Padel Courts in 2026.
Padel in Indiana Right Now
Indiana went from zero padel courts to a genuine scene in under a year.
- NorthPoint Padel (Westfield) — Indiana's first padel facility, open since January 2026. Two indoor courts, 24/7 access, with booking and door entry handled through the Playtomic app. Roughly $20–$25 per player per hour depending on the time slot. This is the state's public option.
- Mouratoglou Tennis Center (Noblesville) — eight indoor padel courts alongside six indoor tennis courts at 14469 Olio Road, with a soft open targeted for August 2026 and the academy program following in the fall. It is the Mouratoglou brand's first Midwest location.
- Fort Wayne Country Club (Fort Wayne) — one outdoor court, members only.
Add it up and Indiana is on track for eleven courts across three facilities by fall 2026. Two of the three are public-access, which is the number that actually determines whether a state's padel scene grows. For the current picture, see our guide to playing padel in Indiana; for regional context, read The Growth of Padel in the Midwest.
What to Watch in Fort Wayne
The open question for Northeast Indiana is whether a public facility follows. Fort Wayne is a metro of more than 400,000 with an established indoor racquet culture, but no pay-to-play padel — the closest bookable court is still in the Indianapolis suburbs. The usual pattern is that a private club proves the demand and a commercial operator builds eighteen months later. Fort Wayne Country Club just started that clock.
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