Golden Ticket Events FAQ

A Golden Ticket event is a highlighted pickleball tournament where category and division winners are granted priority registration access (Golden Tickets) to the USA Pickleball National Championship. If you earn a gold medal at a Golden Ticket event, you have secured a priority registration spot to compete at Nationals.

Golden Ticket events provide a path for amateur players to play in USA Pickleball Nationals, the premiere year end tournament hosted annually in November.

The USA Pickleball National Championships is the premier professional and amateur tournament in the sport of pickleball. Established in 2009, the National Championships has evolved into the first and only pickleball tournament in which players must qualify to participate. To be eligible to participate in the USA Pickleball National Championships, you must have played in a qualifier tournament held in various locations across the United States.

A player enters a qualifying "Golden Ticket" event (listed above) and wins a gold medal in their skill/age bracket. As a gold medal winner, the player receives a “Golden Ticket” or the priority registration opportunity to compete at the USA Pickleball National Championships.

To be eligible to play in the National Championships, players must first participate in one of the "Golden Ticket" tournaments (see list above). Visit our USA Pickleball National Championships website for more registration information.

All events, including singles, will offer a pool-play format. If there are not enough teams for pool play, then a round-robin bracket will be played. The format is subject to change at the Tournament Director's discretion.

The top four teams (2 from each pool or 4 from a round-robin bracket) will move forward to the next round.

All pool-play matches, as well as all pre-medal matches, will be one game to 15, with a two-point margin of victory. The medal matches will be best-of-3 games, with a two-point margin of victory.

The gold-medal winners of each event will earn a Golden Ticket to the USA Pickleball National Championships.

This is an USA Pickleball MMP Sanctioned format.

For a confirmed spot in an event, both partners must register and pay. Players signing up without a partner will be placed on the waitlist until they have a partner who has registered and paid, then they may be moved into the event - If there are spots remaining in the division and the tournament.

In addition to an unrivaled player experience and the opportunity to compete at some of the best facilities around the country, players will receive an exclusive gift bag as a result of attending and participating in a USA Pickleball-operated Golden Ticket event.

Visit the USA Pickleball Nationals website for up-to-date event information: usapickleballnationals.com.

The winners of each age respective skill/age bracket will receive a Golden Ticket.

Example #1:

IIf a 19+ age bracket has 3 teams (A, B, & C) in their skill/age group, they will be combined with the closest age group within their skill level. The 30+ age group has 4 teams (E, F, G, & H). The 19+ age group would be combined with the 30+ age group making a division of 7 teams playing a Round Robin followed by a Playoff bracket.

The Top 4 teams from the Round Robin will move to the Playoff bracket. At the end of the Playoff bracket we have Team A finishing in 2nd place, Team B in 3rd place and Team G in 1st place and Team F in 4th place.

Team G will win the Gold Medal for the 30+ division and Team F winning the Silver medal in the 30+ division. In the 19+ division, Team A will win the Gold medal and Team B will win the Silver medal.

The Bronze medal winners for each age division will be determined by the team with the most match wins in the Round Robin. If there is a tie, the USA Pickleball tie-breaker rules for 2025 will be used.

Example #2:

In a qualifying event, a 75+ age bracket and a 70+ age bracket must be combined with a 65+ age bracket. The winner of the 65+ age bracket will earn a gold medal and a Golden Ticket to the USA Pickleball National Championships. In addition, all 70+ and 75+ age bracket teams will receive a Golden Ticket to the USA Pickleball National Championships (this is due to the fact that all 70+ and greater aged teams that participated in a qualifying event automatically receive a Golden Ticket).

We have greatly expanded the opportunities for players in the 70+, 75+, and 80+ age brackets to obtain early registration to the USA Pickleball National Championships. Players in these age brackets have a different qualification path than all other age brackets. All they have to do in order to qualify for Nationals is play in one of the Golden Ticket tournaments listed on this web page.

Example #1: I play in one of the qualifying tournaments listed in the link above, but my bracket gets combined. Do I need to medal in my combined bracket to get early registration to the USA Pickleball National Championships?

A. No. All you need to do is play in the tournament. If you play in the 70+, 75+ or 80+ age brackets in any of the Golden Ticket tournaments listed above in the link, you will get a Golden Ticket for Nationals.

Example #2: If I get a Golden Ticket for Nationals by satisfying the requirements in Example #1, does my partner also have to play in one of the Golden Ticket tournaments?

A. Yes, your partner will need to play in a USA Pickleball qualifying tournament to be eligible to participate at this year’s Nationals.  Please click on the Golden Ticket tournaments list above.

Example #3: If I am 70+, 75+ or 80+ years old and I play in one of the Golden Ticket tournaments listed above, does this mean I automatically get a Golden Ticket for the USA Pickleball National Championships?

A. Yes. However, players must have played in the same events at a Golden Ticket event in order to register and play in the corresponding event(s) at the National Championships. Example: In order to play in Mixed Doubles and Singles at Nationals, players would have had to play in Mixed Doubles and Singles at a Golden Ticket event.

Junior Players do not need to play in a Qualifying Golden Ticket tournament in order to play in a Junior's event at Nationals. Junior players will need to play in a Qualifying Golden Ticket tournament in order to be eligible to play in amateur skill/age events.

To participate in the Wheelchair Division, yes. However, Wheelchair players who also wish to play in a Nationals skill/age division, they must have played in a Golden Ticket event to be Nationals-eligible.