Back of the Envelope

According to the wags that I look at on YouTube, the entire golf swing takes about one second.

Assume that you shoot 90 as a score and each swing is one second, then over the nominal four hour round, you've spent about one and a half minutes actually hitting the golf ball.

Now let's look at Pickleball.  The swing is shorter.  I don't have numbers, but let's call it one half a second per shot.  The number of shots per game varies a bit, but rallies are about 6 shots or so and if you are playing doubles maybe you get to hit one half of those.  So three shots per point.  Games are to 11 points, but you need to win a point to get the serve in order to actually tally any score.  Let's call a game about 30 points all told.  The opponents score something and you score something and then there is all the to and fro to win the serve.    So in each game you hit the ball about 90 times.  Now you've swung about 1/2 as much, but the same number of strokes. 

We see that a single game of pickleball (PB) provides the same amount of action as a full round of golf.  A PB game lasts about 10 minutes.  We must add that PB requires a lot of bodily movement.  You have to get to the net and then there are some side to side movements and then the darned opponents on occasion will force you back from the net with a lob or something and then you claw your way back.

I normally will play PB for two to three hours at a time.  Call it 5 games per hour - there are breaks for water and panting.  The final answer is that a morning playing PB has the action of 10 to 15 rounds of golf.  And a lot more aerobic content.

My back has been a problem the last 10 days and it may require that I will not be able to play golf and PB.  It would be an easy decision to choose pickleball.