Pickleball in Narragansett, RI: 8 Indoor Courts, Free Town Courts and the Address Listings Get Wrong

Narragansett is a summer town that quietly turned into a serious pickleball town, and the two facts are related. The beach crowd doubles the population from June to Labor Day, but the eight indoor courts on South Pier Road are what keep games going in February. That combination is unusual for a Rhode Island community of this size, and it is why it is worth a proper write-up.

It is also, frankly, one of the messiest towns I have researched for addresses. Let me sort that out first.

Where can you play pickleball in Narragansett without a membership?

You have free options, and they are genuinely free, not free-with-an-asterisk.

• The Clarke Road town courts. Directory listings consistently describe four outdoor hard courts with dedicated permanent nets and painted lines, free to play. This is the town’s recreation complex on Clarke Road.
• The Christofaro park courts. Listings describe four more free courts off Tower Hill Road, with portable rather than permanent nets, so bring one if you want a guaranteed game.
• Guest play at Ocean State. Not free, but you do not need a membership. Guest leveled drop-ins are $25 as of September 1.

Two naming notes, because they will bite you in a search. The town courts show up under at least three different names across the listing sites: Clarke Pointe Park, Clarke Street Recreation Area, and simply the Clarke Road courts. And the Tower Hill park is spelled Cristofaro on most directories but appears as Domenic Christofaro Park in the Narragansett Times’ own council coverage.

Why do the listing sites disagree about the addresses?

This is the finding that made me want to write the piece, and it is a genuinely useful one if you are driving in from out of town.

Narragansett’s Parks & Recreation Department is itself located at 170 Clarke Road, Narragansett, RI 02882, phone 401-782-0658. That address is right on the town’s own department page.

What has happened is that several pickleball directories have attached 170 Clarke Road to Ocean State Pickleball Club — a private indoor club that is not there. Ocean State’s own site embeds a map pointing at 360 S. Pier Rd, Narragansett, RI 02882. Those are different places and different kinds of facility, and one of them will charge you $25 to walk in.

It gets one layer worse. The directories also disagree with each other about the town courts, listing them at 170 Clarke Road on some sites and at 1160 Boston Neck Road on others. I was not able to reconcile that from any primary source, so I am not going to pretend I can. If you are making a special trip, call Parks & Recreation at 401-782-0658 first.

If this pattern sounds familiar, it should. We found the same class of error in Waterville, Maine, where a national directory listed a club’s court count at half its real number, and in Brunswick, Maine, where courts listed as public turned out to be members-only.

What does Ocean State Pickleball actually cost in 2026?

Ocean State Pickleball Club — OSP to everybody who plays there — was built by partners Kara Biller and Andrew Carr around eight premier indoor courts, and it runs leagues, lessons, boot camps and drop-ins rather than just renting court time.

Rates changed on September 1, 2026, after more than two years without an increase. Here is the current structure straight from the club:

What	Guest	Member
Leveled drop-in (free play)	$25	Free
Court reservation, four players	$25 per player	$39 total, about $9.75 per player
Individual membership	—	$79 monthly, or $860 annually
Partner / family membership	—	$137 monthly, or $1,452 annually

A few things worth knowing before you decide:

• The annual saves real money. Paying once annually saves $195 on an individual membership, roughly three months of payments.
• Members get 46 free leveled drop-ins per week. That is the number that decides it. If you play twice a week, membership beats guest pricing quickly.
• There are 16-plus leagues plus a dozen-odd class and training options, with member discounts of 30 to 50 percent on classes, lessons and events.
• Referrals earn $75 in club credit for an individual or partner membership you bring in.
• Guests are welcome but plan ahead. Guests get access to events, lessons, leagues and courts, just with a shorter advance-registration window.

New to indoor club play and not sure what to ask for? Our guide to pickleball lessons for beginners covers what a good first lesson should include and what it should cost.

Is Narragansett actually getting 10 pickleball courts?

You will hear this one on the courts, and the honest answer is: it was proposed, and I cannot confirm it was ever funded.

Here is what is documented. In October 2023 the Narragansett Town Council voted 3-1, with one abstention, to submit four Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management recreation development grant applications. One of them was to redevelop the four existing pickleball courts on Clark Road into 10 courts. Council President Ewa Dzwierzynski and Councilors Susan Cicilline-Buonanno and Deborah Kopech voted in favor; Councilor Steven Ferrandi voted no; President Pro-Tem Jill Lawler abstained, saying the town did not have the money. Town Manager James Tierney noted that DEM had begun requiring a public forum before applications could be submitted.

Now the part nobody has connected. When DEM announced its latest round on March 24, 2026 — over $5.7 million to 15 municipalities — Narragansett was not among the awardees. Two Rhode Island pickleball projects did get funded that round:

• New Shoreham (Block Island): $100,000 for the Block Island Pickleball Court project, including native plantings and a rain garden.
• Glocester: $500,000 for Glocester Memorial Park improvements, including new pickleball courts and restriped tennis courts.

To be precise about what that does and does not prove: Narragansett’s absence from one award cycle does not mean the project was rejected, abandoned, or that it will not happen. Towns reapply, and projects get built with other money. What I can say is that every current listing still shows four courts on Clarke Road, not 10, and the town’s own recreation pages say nothing about the project either way.

If your town is chasing the same thing, DEM’s program is worth understanding: grants require a community match, small development awards run up to $125,000 and large ones up to $500,000, and the program has awarded more than 582 grants totaling over $96 million since 1988. We cover the wider regional picture in our guide to pickleball court grants in New England.

What is the catch with the town’s information?

I checked four separate Narragansett Parks & Recreation and Recreation Programs pages on the town website. None of them mentions pickleball. Not once.

That is not an accusation, it is a practical warning. It means there is no official, authoritative page telling you court counts, hours, or whether nets are up in the shoulder season — which is exactly why the directories have been free to contradict each other for years. It is the same gap we ran into in Gardner, Massachusetts.

So, practically:

• Call before you commit. Parks & Recreation, 170 Clarke Road, 401-782-0658.
• Off-season, assume nothing about nets. The Tower Hill courts are described as using portable nets. A trunk net solves the whole problem.
• If you want the 10 courts, show up. Narragansett has a Recreation Advisory Board that meets publicly. That is where court decisions actually get made, and pickleball players are usually outnumbered in the room.

Where else can you play nearby?

Narragansett sits well for a road trip. South County is compact, and the indoor clubs cluster along the bay.

• North Kingstown — Lil’ Rhody Pickleball, indoor and outdoor courts with leagues and a pro shop, about 20 minutes north.
• South Kingstown — the town rec center runs municipal pickleball, minutes inland.
• Middletown and Newport — the Newport Pickleball Club is a large indoor facility across the bay; see our Newport guide.
• Up the bay — Warwick and Cranston both have established scenes.

For the full picture, our Rhode Island pickleball guide maps the whole state, the New England court directory lets you search by radius, and if you are planning for January, indoor pickleball in New England is the one to bookmark.

Frequently asked questions

Are there free pickleball courts in Narragansett?
Yes. Listings describe four free outdoor courts at the town’s Clarke Road recreation complex with permanent nets and lines, plus additional free courts at the Christofaro park off Tower Hill Road that use portable nets. Confirm with Parks & Recreation at 401-782-0658 before making a trip.

Where is Ocean State Pickleball Club?
At 360 S. Pier Rd in Narragansett, not at 170 Clarke Road as several directories list. The 170 Clarke Road address belongs to the Town of Narragansett Parks & Recreation Department. The club’s phone is 401-786-3329.

Can I play at Ocean State without joining?
Yes. Guests can use courts, lessons, leagues and club events with a shorter advance-registration window. As of September 1, 2026 a guest leveled drop-in is $25, and a four-player guest court reservation is $25 per player.

Is pickleball in Narragansett a year-round sport?
Yes, thanks to the eight climate-controlled indoor courts on South Pier Road. The free outdoor town courts are realistically a spring-through-fall proposition in coastal Rhode Island.

Is Narragansett building more pickleball courts?
A plan to expand the four Clarke Road courts to 10 was approved for a state grant application by the Town Council in October 2023. Narragansett did not appear in Rhode Island DEM’s March 2026 award announcement, and current listings still show four courts. The town has not published an update, so treat the expansion as proposed rather than scheduled.

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Sources: Ocean State Pickleball Club for courts, rates and the September 1 2026 rate change; the Town of Narragansett Parks & Recreation page for the department address and phone; the Narragansett Times for the October 2023 council vote; and Rhode Island DEM for the March 2026 recreation grant awards. Court counts and addresses at the free town courts come from third-party directories and are unconfirmed by the town. Verified September 14, 2026.

Jason Regan is a USA Pickleball Ambassador and the founder of Regan Family Pickleball, based in Leominster, Massachusetts. He plays and reviews courts across all six New England states.