I’ll start by saying, what a ride! Jennifer and I were first introduced to pickleball by her father while he was visiting us from Texas. After leaving for a couple of days to go to Indian Wells, he came home with a Silver Medal in the 2018 USAP National Championship. Me: “Silver Medal? Nationals? Pickleball? What’s Pickleball?” And so the journey began…
In 2018, with our three children (Reid, Emery & Clay) away in college, I started to sell off pieces of my 35+ year old manufacturing company, Cafejo, that I started in 1989. Thinking we were going down a “semi-retirement” path, Jennifer and I joined the local tennis club (Member #24 & 25) across the street that had four less than perfect pickleball courts and started to play and travel for pickleball. Like most who play the game, we fell in love with it. We started to build a community around those four Newport Beach courts and soon found ourselves helping to run leagues, organize play and create community social events. I then helped the club build more courts to support the community we were building and help the struggling club. Once there were four, there were now 12 pickleball courts… and Newport was on its way.
At this point in time I figured I had done my good deed for the community and the operator of the club now had enough pickleball business to support paying a Director of PB to continue what we had helped to build. Instead, he asked me to stay. Not wanting a job, I came up with a win/win solution with the club, and the two smart, hard-working women who also helped build it since the beginning, we started Newport Beach Pickleball Events LLC. Not only did we grow the club to over 1500+ members, but we ran a profitable event company that fit a huge demand in the community. We kept expanding the club, building out a total of 31 pb courts and a restaurant, which my sons Reid and Clay helped build. At this point in time we were one of the largest pickleball clubs in the country. We ran huge tournaments and hosted the PPA, MLP and APP. Those were fun times for sure.
It was very early in the business of pickleball and I saw it as an entrepreneur‘s playground. Jennifer & I invested in MLP (Major League Pickleball) and DUPR (Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating System), I co-founded and was COB of PickleballSuperstore.com, I trademarked and sold the World Series of Pickleball to Andre Agassi for shares in his company and I also helped shape USAP National Championship by helping them create the Golden Ticket National Qualifiers, which I ran the first one in Newport Beach. I ended up running it for two years and sold the rights to the APP who still runs it today.
In 2021 a pickleball friend and I found an abandoned tennis facility in San Diego and developed & operated the first HUB Pickleball. We then spent the next four years strategically finding property to develop and manage three more HUBs: Silicon Valley, Alameda and Jacksonville. Today The HUB Pickleball is one of the most respected brands in the industry.
In 2025, I found an opportunity to build a club in Maui. Having family ties to Lahaina and believing that pickleball can help the community that is still recovering from the 2023 fire, Jennifer & I decided to pack our bags and move to Maui to build a club and retry “semi-retirement”. Our sons came over with us and we started developing the club. After a month, Reid had to go back to help run The HUB – Silicon Valley, but my son Clay gave up his Manager job at The HUB – San Diego to move to Maui to build, and now manage the club we built together. In January 2026, Reid decided to move to Maui, to help build and run the club too.
OHANA Pickleball Club – Maui was literally created by family. We now consider some of the Hawaiians and Tongans that helped build it, family as well. We officially opened Phase One on September 1, 2025 and the rest of this beautiful twelve court facility opened in January 2026.
Like I said, “what a ride”… and it’s not over. We are looking forward to having you and your Ohana join our pickleball Ohana here in Ka’anapali, Maui.
Mahalo,
Rolfes Ohana
(Pat, Jen, Reid, Emery & Clay)
Pod Casts
youtu.be/GOS0hmAIkhY
youtu.be/7YxxWBDzI1g
youtu.be/hrk22HqAqwU
youtu.be/JSWAA2Conls
youtu.be/Gvu0m3k5DAI
