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CITY NEWS

Golden Gate Badminton Club Offers New Recreation Options to Residents

Roger Brigham
The Emeryville Connection Staff
February 2008

It’s tucked away on a side street, a couple of blocks from the more frenzied main roads of Emeryville, encircled by looming warehouses and rising freeways – the kind of place that gets known by word-of-mouth.

Fortunately, word spreads fast.

“The badminton world in the Bay Area is a very tight community,” owner Mike Yang said of his Golden Gate Badminton Club on Hubbard Street. “Mostly we are known by word of mouth. We did a high profile ranking tournament when we opened in October, and that was one of only six in the U.S. that year. Most of the top players came to Emeryville.”

The Emeryville location is the second badminton facility in the Bay Area opened by the former coach of UC Berkeley Badminton Club. His Menlo Park location opened in 2005. Both facilities offer excellent lighting, eight courts with high tech-floors, and coaching from highly ranked international players.

A British invention, badminton is wildly popular in Asia, especially in China, India and Indonesia.

“Our major customers right now are Chinese and Indian,” Yang said. “Traditionally badminton is one of the most popular sports in the world. Two-hundred-fifty million Chinese play. It is huge in Asia. It’s as big as football or basketball here.

“We have a lot of world class instructors. If they walked down a street in Indonesia, they would be treated as celebrities.”

Badminton has been an Olympic sport since 1992 and its popularity in the United States, though lagging behind the rest of the world is growing, with more than an estimated 7 million recreational players.

“In the badminton world, I know one of the biggest difficulties is finding a professional facility dedicated just for badminton,” said Yang, who has been ranked as high as No. 2 nationally. “Players have to use community centers, which are not built for badminton and are not available at certain times for other functions.

“I opened my club in Menlo Park after two years of work. But I used to play and coach in Berkeley, and I realized that the whole East Bay region I loved had many badminton players.”

Phoebe Wong, front manager at the Emeryville club, said on an average day more than 70 people play at the club.

“They come in from all over the Bay Area,” said Wong. “Emeryville, Oakland, Berkeley, Hercules, Albany, El Cerrito. I would say 80 percent are Chinese. The others are Filipino, Caucasians and Indians. About 50 percent are recreational players. The others are pretty competitive. I would say 10 percent are very competitive and the other 40 percent intermediate.”

“It definitely fosters a sense of community,” Yang said, “but one thing we hope to achieve is to promote this sport to people who have never heard of it before. We offer free introductory classes in Emeryville.”

On any given evening the eight courts are filled with players serving and volleying the shuttlecocks over the nets. Shuttlecocks can come off the racquet at dizzying speeds and the sport emphasis touch and agility.

Wong played badminton while growing up in China and returned to the sport when Golden Gate opened in Menlo Park. She said the atmosphere in both facilities is very much the same.

“Both have very friendly atmospheres,” Wong said. “Some people say this is like their second home. I know a lot of people who went to play because they wanted to make new friends. They were able to do that at the club.

“I think I like badminton because you can enjoy it at all different levels. You can have some lessons and move on to more serious play. Eventually I would like to go into tournaments. There’s a lot of satisfaction seeing myself improve through the years.”

Roger Brigham is a writer for The Emeryville

Connection. If you have a question or comment, please contact him at ecocnews@gmail.com