What distinguishes these elite Los Angeles golf clubs? They all are nearly 100 years old, have famous members and cost big bucks to join.
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LOS ANGELES — It’s Thursday morning in Los Angeles, and the 2023 U.S. Open begins today on the North Course at LACC. Fewer fans are on-site this week, as the club’s smaller footprint limited how many spectators entered the gates.
We are in Los Angeles, after all, so it’s not like we are overflowing with open space. Many of the country clubs around here are like that. Much has been written about these exclusive clubs and the LA golf scene over the last couple of weeks as we gear up for this national championship, but there’s still a lot left to ponder.
Initiation fees? Club rules? Members? A lot of that information doesn’t creep out into the public. It’s even harder to find for some of the oldest, most storied private clubs in the area, a handful of which were recently identified in the June 2023 issue of GOLF Magazine.
So what do you need to know about Los Angeles Country Club, Wilshire Country Club, Hillcrest Country Club, Lakeside Golf Club, Riviera Country Club and Bel-Air Country Club? For starters, their lists of famous members has names like Mark Wahlberg, Will Ferrell, Jack Nicholson, Justin Timberlake, Niall Horan, Adam Sandler, Larry David, Jason Bateman and Will Arnett. (Bateman and Arnett, by the way, even starred in NBC promos for this week’s event.)
Check out the chart below to learn more about these clubs, their famous members and history. Oh, and if you are wondering who the famous members are at LACC (where it says “see page 62”), here’s all you need to know.
(This chart originally appeared in the June 2023 issue of GOLF Magazine and was compiled by GOLF staff.)
As GOLF.com’s managing editor, Berhow handles the day-to-day and long-term planning of one of the sport’s most-read news and service websites. He spends most of his days writing, editing, planning and wondering if he’ll ever break 80. Before joining GOLF.com in 2015, he worked at newspapers in Minnesota and Iowa. A graduate of Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minn., he resides in the Twin Cities with his wife and two kids. You can reach him at joshua_berhow@golf.com.