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      <pubDate>Thu, 16 Feb 2023 18:19:54 +0000</pubDate>
      <title><![CDATA[L.A.'s massive golfing year is officially underway (with plenty more to come)]]></title>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>This week's Genesis Invitational ushers in a big year — heck, a big decade — for golf in Los Angeles. Here's how that looks.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/los-angeles-golf-year-underway/">L.A.&#8217;s massive golfing year is officially underway (with plenty more to come)</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
]]></description>
      <link>https://golf.com/travel/los-angeles-golf-year-underway/</link>
      <category><![CDATA[Travel]]></category>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Dylan Dethier]]></dc:creator>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This week's Genesis Invitational ushers in a big year — heck, a big decade — for golf in Los Angeles. Here's how that looks.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/los-angeles-golf-year-underway/">L.A.&#8217;s massive golfing year is officially underway (with plenty more to come)</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This week's Genesis Invitational ushers in a big year — heck, a big decade — for golf in Los Angeles. Here's how that looks.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/los-angeles-golf-year-underway/">L.A.&#8217;s massive golfing year is officially underway (with plenty more to come)</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
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<html><body><p class="first">PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. &mdash; It was Monday of Genesis Invitational week &mdash;&nbsp;Riviera Week! &mdash; but across the 405, a cadre of top pros flocked to another golf course just a few miles east.</p>



<p>Tiger Woods was among the pros taking advantage of a day in the area to scout L.A. Country Club&rsquo;s North Course, host site for this year&rsquo;s U.S. Open. He trekked around with a golf cart and a putter, making plans for June. Woods was photographed stopping for a chat with Adam Scott. Defending champ Matthew Fitzpatrick was on property, too, as were a half-dozen others on exploratory missions.</p>



<p>Once Monday was through they&rsquo;d turn their attention to this week&rsquo;s task: prepping for one of the biggest events on the PGA Tour calendar. But the split was a reminder that this is a big, big year for L.A. golf. Let&rsquo;s break it down:</p>


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<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The elevated Genesis makes its debut</h3>



<p>The Genesis Invitational was already a &ldquo;designated event&rdquo; before we had a name for such things. The storied history of the L.A. Open, its Invitational status, the players&rsquo; love for Riviera and the draw of tournament host Tiger Woods are a pretty unbeatable combination.</p>



<p>Adam Scott, who won here in 2021, described this as his &ldquo;favorite stop on Tour&rdquo; and always has it circled on his calendar. &ldquo;This tournament, the last several years, has certainly had that elevated feel about it,&rdquo; he said.</p>



<p>But this year&rsquo;s Genesis received what is essentially a double boost: First from the Tour&rsquo;s new designated event programming, which raised the purse from $12 million to $20 million and brought 19 of the top 20 players in the world ranking to L.A.</p>



<p>&ldquo;I mean, it&rsquo;s good to be here this week, yes,&rdquo; Scott said.</p>



<p>The second boost comes from <a href="https://golf.com/news/tiger-woods-genesis-invitational-2023/">Woods&rsquo; participation</a> in the event. While the Tour has plenty of intriguing storylines &mdash;&nbsp;the Scheffler-McIlroy-Rahm battle for No. 1 currently chief among them &mdash;&nbsp;there&rsquo;s still no draw that can compare to that of Tiger Woods trying, once again, to climb the mountain. City of Stars, indeed.</p>



<p>Woods says he&rsquo;s here to win; that&rsquo;s the only way he ever approaches a tournament. But just the fact that he&rsquo;s participating ensures increased interest in the action from Pacific Palisades.</p>


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<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-national-championship-returns-to-l-a">The National Championship returns to L.A.</h3>



<p>It&rsquo;s not as though the USGA has been ignoring Los Angeles; Riviera hosted the U.S. Amateur in 2017 and the U.S. Open was hardly on the other side of the world when it was contested a couple hours south at Torrey Pines in 2021 or a road-trip north at Pebble Beach in 2019.</p>



<p>But there will be an extra dash of Hollywood at this year&rsquo;s Open, with LACC making its major championship debut and ushering in the area&rsquo;s first U.S. Open since 1948 (!).</p>



<p>Like Riviera, LACC is a George Thomas design. Like Riviera, it was an L.A. Open host, though not since 1940. Southern California native Max Homa explained on Wednesday that like Riviera, LACC begins with a handshake par 5 before a brutish test that follows.</p>



<p>&ldquo;I feel that&rsquo;s a pretty cool architectural nuance, I look at 18 holes at times on these beautiful greatly designed courses like a story and a movie and I think it&rsquo;s the first act of a movie. I thought that was a cool thing that he did,&rdquo; Homa said.</p>



<p>Fitzpatrick described the course where he&rsquo;ll defend his title as &ldquo;very rugged.&rdquo; Other pros who have visited describe a course that can stretch to extreme length, including par 3s that can approach 300 yards. (Another par 3, the 15th, could play as short as 78 yards.) A 2010 restoration by Gil Hanse &mdash; working in conjunction with Jim Wagner and Geoff Shackelford &mdash; prepped the course for its 2023 close-up.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The LPGA Double</h3>



<p>The LPGA is doubling down &mdash; literally &mdash;&nbsp;on its Los Angeles golf presence with two updated tournament commitments.</p>



<p>At the end of March, pros will take to Palos Verdes Golf Club to play in the DIO Implant L.A. Open. PVGC highlights the scenic coastline of southwest Los Angeles County from up above. (We played its younger muni brother, Los Verdes, <a href="https://golf.com/travel/los-verdes-la-destination-golf/">last month</a>.)</p>



<p>The LPGA will return to L.A. at the end of April for the new JM Eagle L.A. Championship. It&rsquo;s a new event, technically, and a new sponsor &mdash;&nbsp;but it&rsquo;s at a familiar host course, Wilshire Country Club, the site of last year&rsquo;s L.A. Open.</p>



<p>Until the L.A. Open returned to the schedule in 2018, the LPGA had lacked a presence in the area for a decade. Not anymore.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Future</h3>



<p>It&rsquo;s a good thing we love Riviera, because we&rsquo;re gearing up to see a whole lot more of it.</p>



<p>The 2026 U.S. Women&rsquo;s Open will head to Riv, marking the centennial celebration of the course. The 2028 Olympic men&rsquo;s and women&rsquo;s golf competitions will be played at Riv, too. There have been murmurs of the U.S. Open coming to Riv in 2031.</p>



<p>This summer won&rsquo;t be our last look at LACC North, either: it&rsquo;s slated to host the U.S. Women&rsquo;s Open in 2032.</p>



<p>Really, an epic <em>decade</em> of Los Angeles golf awaits. But we&rsquo;ll take it one week at a time &mdash;&nbsp;and that begins on Thursday.</p>



<p><em>You can see our trek through Los Angeles&rsquo; public golf scene in the video below.</em></p>


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<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/los-angeles-golf-year-underway/">L.A.&#8217;s massive golfing year is officially underway (with plenty more to come)</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
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      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://golf.com/?post_type=article&amp;p=15508224</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Feb 2023 22:02:13 +0000</pubDate>
      <title><![CDATA[The best golf vibes in LA are at this Santa Monica muni]]></title>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>Penmar Golf Course offers one of the best golf hangs in all of Los Angeles. It's less about the golf and more about the people. </p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/penmar-golf-los-angeles-wednesday/">The best golf vibes in LA are at this Santa Monica muni</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
]]></description>
      <link>https://golf.com/travel/penmar-golf-los-angeles-wednesday/</link>
      <category><![CDATA[Travel]]></category>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sean Zak]]></dc:creator>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Penmar Golf Course offers one of the best golf hangs in all of Los Angeles. It's less about the golf and more about the people. </p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/penmar-golf-los-angeles-wednesday/">The best golf vibes in LA are at this Santa Monica muni</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Penmar Golf Course offers one of the best golf hangs in all of Los Angeles. It's less about the golf and more about the people. </p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/penmar-golf-los-angeles-wednesday/">The best golf vibes in LA are at this Santa Monica muni</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd">
<html><body><p class="first">The tee signs at Penmar Golf Course, Los Angeles&rsquo; beloved neighborhood muni, offer intrigue more than anything else. Instead of &ldquo;Penmar&rdquo; or &ldquo;Penmar GC,&rdquo; there&rsquo;s a different inscription: <em>Penmar by the Sea</em>.</p>



<p>For a first-timer, this feels odd. This residential course is nothing like Manchester-by-the-sea in Massachusetts or Carmel-by-the-Sea in Monterey. But after an evening on-site, Penmar-by-the-sea begins to make sense. It&rsquo;s not really about the golf, or about the sea &mdash; it&rsquo;s about the environment. The chillness of hanging out on a golf course in a beach town, often with strangers, almost every one of whom has shared this experience with some other group of strangers before. </p>



<p>Except us. We stumbled onto Penmar a month ago in the middle of a torrid rip around the city. Our plan was simple: max out <a href="https://golf.com/travel/48-golfy-hours-in-los-angeles/">48 hours in LA</a>. We played four courses, attended a Clippers game, saw the sights and ate everything in sight (even at the kind of restaurants featured on TV shows). But when we got to <a href="https://golf.com/travel/penmar-golf-course-venice-california/">Penmar</a>, life slowed down. The pace of play is slow enough to enrage any city golfer, but it doesn&rsquo;t seem to matter. The people you meet at Penmar are people who want to meet people.</p>


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<p>Our group played up into Ben Miller&rsquo;s trio on the first hole and managed to see them on every single tee box thereafter. Miller had arrived on his own and jumped into a group with Robert James. They didn&rsquo;t know each other when they woke up that morning but had become fast friends, clubbing off each other. By the end of the night they were trading intel on what the Lakers should do with Russell Westbrook at the trade deadline. About 50 yards from them, a four-ball putting competition played out under the lights. Losers bought drinks.&nbsp;</p>



<p>As for the golf course, Penmar does little to impress. It&rsquo;s simple. 2,500 yards from the tips. Three par-3s, no par-5s, airplanes constantly buzzing overhead. Penmar hosts the local high school teams every week, it seems. There isn&rsquo;t a day that goes by when it&rsquo;s not being used.&nbsp;</p>



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          <img class="lazy g-block-image__file" src="https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Screenshot-2023-02-15-at-11.02.01-AM.jpg" alt="penmar venice" srcset="https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Screenshot-2023-02-15-at-11.02.01-AM.jpg?width=300 300w, https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Screenshot-2023-02-15-at-11.02.01-AM.jpg?width=720 600w, https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Screenshot-2023-02-15-at-11.02.01-AM.jpg?width=1280 900w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, (max-width: 600px) 50vw, (max-width: 900px) 33vw, 900px" style="background-image: url(https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Screenshot-2023-02-15-at-11.02.01-AM.jpg?width=30);" decoding="async" loading="lazy"/>        <figcaption>
              <span class="g-block-image__caption"> </span>
      
              <span class="g-block-image__credits">Tiffani Lynch</span>
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<p>&ldquo;Wednesdays in the summertime have dramatically changed in the past few years,&rdquo; Miller told us of the concert series that is now something of local legend. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re in your 20s and 30s, and even if you&rsquo;re older and have a family. And a dog. There are a lot of dogs here on Wednesdays.</p>



<p>&ldquo;Some incredible live music, it&rsquo;s one of the most popular spots in Venice on Wednesdays in the summer. It&rsquo;s an awesome, awesome place.&rdquo;</p>



<p>When Miller says &ldquo;incredible music&rdquo; he means appearances by the likes of Chris Shiflett, the lead guitarist for Foo Fighters. And when he says &ldquo;most popular,&rdquo; he means as many as 2,000 people. That&rsquo;s the record tally The Penmar cafe has proudly hosted, spilling out off the patio and onto the 1st tee and putting green. This ain&rsquo;t your standard golf hang. Officially, The Penmar (the privately-owned cafe on-site) calls it Wednesday Sunset Sessions, but unofficially Miller calls it the best place for singles in their 20s and 30s to meet each other.&nbsp;That can&rsquo;t be far off. </p>


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font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:550; line-height:18px;">View this post on Instagram</div></div><div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"><div> <div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"></div> <div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"></div></div><div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"></div> <div style=" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg)"></div></div><div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style=" width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"></div> <div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"></div> <div style=" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"></div></div></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"></div> <div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"></div></div></a><p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CVOfOOEB5t1/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none;" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Sunset Sessions (@penmarlive)</a></p></div></blockquote> <script async src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script>
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<p>It all feeds into the sense that golf courses might not have to be strictly golf spaces. This course brings in the golfers and the cafe brings in the others. Those groups mesh underneath TVs and heated lamps and on the putting green sipping $5.50 Modelos at the daily happy hour. </p>



<p>Penmar is a golfy YMCA, and you don&rsquo;t even have to pay for a membership.</p>



<p><em>You can see more of our trip to Penmar and other golfy LA spots in the video below.</em></p>


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<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/penmar-golf-los-angeles-wednesday/">The best golf vibes in LA are at this Santa Monica muni</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Feb 2023 19:03:59 +0000</pubDate>
      <title><![CDATA[48 Golfy Hours in LA | Part 2]]></title>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>On the second day of our 48-hour LA Golf marathon, we played a hidden bargain in the shadow of Griffith Observatory, at the site of Harrison Ford’s plane crash (!), and under the lights at a course owned by Topgolf.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/48-golfy-hours-in-la-part-2/">48 Golfy Hours in LA | Part 2</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
]]></description>
      <link>https://golf.com/travel/48-golfy-hours-in-la-part-2/</link>
      <category><![CDATA[Travel]]></category>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>On the second day of our 48-hour LA Golf marathon, we played a hidden bargain in the shadow of Griffith Observatory, at the site of Harrison Ford’s plane crash (!), and under the lights at a course owned by Topgolf.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/48-golfy-hours-in-la-part-2/">48 Golfy Hours in LA | Part 2</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>On the second day of our 48-hour LA Golf marathon, we played a hidden bargain in the shadow of Griffith Observatory, at the site of Harrison Ford’s plane crash (!), and under the lights at a course owned by Topgolf.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/48-golfy-hours-in-la-part-2/">48 Golfy Hours in LA | Part 2</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd">
<html><body><p class="first">On the second day of our 48-hour LA Golf marathon, we played a hidden bargain in the shadow of Griffith Observatory, at the site of Harrison Ford&rsquo;s plane crash (!), and under the lights at a course owned by Topgolf.</p>
</body></html>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/48-golfy-hours-in-la-part-2/">48 Golfy Hours in LA | Part 2</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
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      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://golf.com/?post_type=article&amp;p=15507197</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 Feb 2023 15:49:07 +0000</pubDate>
      <title><![CDATA[What I spent on a marathon 2-day golf trip in Los Angeles]]></title>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>Ah, Los Angeles. A wonderful place for golf, food, culture (Hollywood, anyone?!) and a damn good time. Here's what it costs.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/greens-fees-2-day-golf-trip-los-angeles-destination-golf/">What I spent on a marathon 2-day golf trip in Los Angeles</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
]]></description>
      <link>https://golf.com/travel/greens-fees-2-day-golf-trip-los-angeles-destination-golf/</link>
      <category><![CDATA[Travel]]></category>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[James Colgan]]></dc:creator>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Ah, Los Angeles. A wonderful place for golf, food, culture (Hollywood, anyone?!) and a damn good time. Here's what it costs.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/greens-fees-2-day-golf-trip-los-angeles-destination-golf/">What I spent on a marathon 2-day golf trip in Los Angeles</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Ah, Los Angeles. A wonderful place for golf, food, culture (Hollywood, anyone?!) and a damn good time. Here's what it costs.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/greens-fees-2-day-golf-trip-los-angeles-destination-golf/">What I spent on a marathon 2-day golf trip in Los Angeles</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd">
<html><body><p class="first"><em>Welcome to Greens Fees, a travel series from GOLF aimed at helping you understand the dollars (and sense) of your next golf trip.</em></p>



<p>I was supposed to <em>hate</em> Los Angeles.</p>



<p>For much longer than I&rsquo;d care to remember, my image of LA as a status-obsessed, wheatgrass-slugging hipster haven had stood as a playful straw man for my beloved hometown of New York.</p>



<p>LA could never be NYC, and it surely could never beat<em> </em>it. The list of things I supposedly loathed about the area ran longer than a 2 a.m. pizza line back home: its lack of substance, its adulation for misery in the name of &ldquo;grind culture,&rdquo; its insistent self-flagellation, Hollywood.</p>



<p>Sure, the weather was better, but was that really worth the cost of my soul? I felt certain of my correctness on the matter. But as I bundled up for another frigid winter in New York, I felt my conviction slipping.</p>



<p>The previous month, my coworkers had mentioned the possibility of an early-January golf trip to the area. Los Angeles is in for a <em>huge </em>season of golf, and they wanted to be the first to get the lay of the land. Beginning with <a href="https://genesisinvitational.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">next week&rsquo;s Genesis Invitational</a> at Riviera and continuing well through the summer to the U.S. Open, the eyes of the golf world will be on SoCal. </p>



<p>The plan, they said, was simple: spend 48 hours doing <em>everything</em>. All the places you can see, all the food you can eat, all the golf you can play. I took one look at the forecast in New York and felt my stomach turn. I&rsquo;d never been to Los Angeles. Seventy degrees and sunny sounded intriguing.</p>



<p>Before I knew it, I found myself aboard a westbound 767 bound for sunny Southern California, my golf bag in tow. </p>



<p>I arrived to find my preconceptions overblown. As it turned out, LA was nothing like what I expected. Its neighborhoods were charming, its people warmed by the sunshine, its energy annoyingly infectious, and its weather strikingly &hellip; <em>terrible? </em></p>



<p>At any rate, <em>La La Land </em>was shocked into my consciousness when it finally came time to board my flight home. It would stay that way for at least another two weeks, until the credit card bill came in. </p>


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<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-i-spent-on-a-2-day-los-angeles-golf-trip">What I spent on a 2-day Los Angeles golf trip</h3>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-travel">Travel</h4>



<p>The benefit of a golf trip to a major metropolitan area is that travel is relatively straightforward.</p>



<p>For those leaving from transportation hubs, flights to LA can be more affordable than some regional locales. Airfares routinely run in the neighborhood of $300 round-trip, while a glut of rental car inventory means a weekend ride can land in the same neighborhood. </p>



<p><strong>The essentials:</strong></p>



<p><strong>Flight: </strong>$347</p>



<p><strong>Rental car (per person): </strong>$73.40</p>



<p><strong>Trip Total: </strong>$420.40</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lodging">Lodging</h4>



<p>Over the holidays, I chatted with a relative who&rsquo;s lived in Los Angeles for the last few years.</p>



<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll see this when you get there,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;But everything is 40 minutes away from everything else.&rdquo;</p>



<p>At the time I laughed, but it took only a few minutes in town before that laughter turned to dread. More than any other place I&rsquo;ve visited, location is <em>critically </em>important to success on an LA golf trip. </p>



<p>Fortunately, my colleague Dylan Dethier booked our fivesome a lovely Airbnb just north of Santa Monica. It was the perfect center point for most of our 48-hour boondoggle. The rental wasn&rsquo;t cheap, but our itinerary might have paid an even heftier price had we stayed somewhere less convenient.</p>



<p><strong>Airbnb (3 nights, split 5 ways): </strong>$390</p>



<p><strong>Trip Total:</strong> $810.40</p>



<div class="g-block-wrapper g-block-wrapper--image g-block-wrapper--inline g-block-wrapper--align-right">
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          <img class="lazy g-block-image__file" src="https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/map-la.jpg" alt="map of los angeles" srcset="https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/map-la.jpg?width=300 300w, https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/map-la.jpg?width=720 600w, https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/map-la.jpg?width=1280 900w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, (max-width: 600px) 50vw, (max-width: 900px) 33vw, 900px" style="background-image: url(https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/map-la.jpg?width=30);" decoding="async" loading="lazy"/>        <figcaption>
              <span class="g-block-image__caption">There&rsquo;s plenty to see, do and eat in Los Angeles.</span>
      
              <span class="g-block-image__credits">Darren Riehl</span>
          </figcaption>
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<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-day-1">Day 1</h3>



<p>There&rsquo;s an old <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXkk65PdKyM&amp;ab_channel=HistoricusJoe">Albert Hammond song</a> that summarizes our first morning in LA. Perhaps you&rsquo;ve heard it.</p>



<p>&ldquo;<em>It never rains in California, </em><br /><em>but girl don&rsquo;t they warn ya, it pours.&rdquo;</em></p>



<p>The meteorologists called the rain that fell on our first morning in town an &ldquo;atmospheric river&rdquo; &mdash; a fancy term for what our ancestors once called a &ldquo;great flood.&rdquo;  Water pierced through the sky in globs, soaking everything in an instant. Newly formed rivers flowed through the streets. Great puddles sprawled out over the cement.</p>



<p>Rather than tempt the irrigation at a course that sees less than 20 days of rain a year, we canceled our first tee time at Terranea, a cliffside par-3 course in Palos Verdes. Instead, our crew headed to <a href="https://norms.com/">Norm&rsquo;s</a>, a SoCal greasy spoon original, to plot out the rest of our day through forkfuls of avocado-covered omelets and thick pancakes.</p>



<p>Before our afternoon tee time, we decided to stop by the <a href="https://aromaresort.com/golf-range-price-to-public/">Aroma Driving Range</a> for a slice of LA golf heaven. The net-enclosed range rests in the heart of Downtown LA &mdash; and just feet above a parking garage. As fate would have it, Aroma was also a Hollywood bonafide, serving as the setting for a handful of scenes in the <em>Fast and Furious </em>franchise.</p>



<p>We departed Aroma around noon and, at long last, it was time for golf. The site of our round was Los Verdes, a municipal course set on the cliffs above Palos Verdes, the southernmost tip of Los Angeles. With <a href="https://phannysredondo.wordpress.com/">food in hand from Phanny&rsquo;s</a>, a breakfast burrito-only joint in Redondo Beach, we set off for our first round of the trip. </p>



<p>With its cliffside views and jaw-dropping scenery, <a href="https://www.losverdesgc.com/">Los Verdes</a> is an <em>unbelievable </em>value. In fact, there&rsquo;s an argument to be made it&rsquo;s too affordable. Among LA golf diehards, tee times at Los Verdes come with the same esteem as winning lottery tickets &mdash; and about as often. There is a 10-year waiting list for &ldquo;membership&rdquo; at the club, which helps secure early afternoon tee times. Juniors pay a whopping $3 after certain times in the afternoon. </p>



<p>&ldquo;You guys are going to get a <em>really </em>good finish,&rdquo; one teenager told me with a knowing smile as we walked to the 11th tee.</p>



<p>The sun poked through just as our round came to a close, basking us in glorious streaks of gold right as we reached the course&rsquo;s climactic stretch on holes 11-15. Our pants were stained with mud when we finally made our way back to the parking lot, but our golfing souls were cleansed.</p>



<p>After a quick shower, it was off to our final stop of the night, the Clippers game at Crypto.com arena. We giggled our way through a deliriously dominant Kawhi Leonard performance with stadium snacks in hand. We&rsquo;d originally planned for postgame Korean BBQ, but as the final buzzer rang, there was an unspoken agreement among our fivesome: it was time for bed.</p>



<p><strong>Golf: </strong>$44</p>



<p><strong>Driving range: </strong>$16</p>



<p><strong>Food and drink (per person): </strong>$67.75</p>



<p><strong>Parking: </strong>$58</p>



<p><strong>Clippers Tix</strong> <strong>(per person): </strong>$39.95</p>



<p><strong>Day total: </strong>$227.70</p>



<p><strong>Trip total: </strong>$1,038.10</p>



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          <img class="lazy g-block-image__file" src="https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/los-verdes.jpg" alt="los verdes at sunset" srcset="https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/los-verdes.jpg?width=300 300w, https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/los-verdes.jpg?width=720 600w, https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/los-verdes.jpg?width=1280 900w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, (max-width: 600px) 50vw, (max-width: 900px) 33vw, 900px" style="background-image: url(https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/los-verdes.jpg?width=30);" decoding="async" loading="lazy"/>        <figcaption>
              <span class="g-block-image__caption">At sunset, Los Verdes will take your breath away.</span>
      
              <span class="g-block-image__credits">GOLF</span>
          </figcaption>
  </figure>

  </div>


<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-day-2">Day 2</h3>



<p>I have had better breakfasts than the one our fivesome enjoyed at Franklin&rsquo;s Cafe on the Wednesday morning of our trip, but more vital ones? I&rsquo;m not convinced. After a late night in Clipperland, we rose at dawn the next morning with a fury. With bad traffic and a long day of golf before us, there was hardly time to stop before arriving at the course. </p>



<p>By good grace or good fortune, we arrived at Roosevelt Golf Course <a href="http://franklinsatgriffithpark.com/">to find the aptly named Franklin&rsquo;s</a> &mdash; a humble 19th-hole adjacent cafe &mdash; bustling in the morning light. We downed coffees and annihilated blueberry muffins (around $10 per person) as we hustled to the first tee at Roosevelt, our outlooks sufficiently shifted.</p>



<p>For the golf purist, it&rsquo;s easy to make the argument that Roosevelt is nothing special, that it&rsquo;s as normal and inoffensive as any city-owned nine-holer in the U.S. For the golf <em>tourist</em>, however, the argument against Roosevelt is tougher. The golf course is situated in the heart of LA&rsquo;s Griffith Park and features stunning views of the skyline and the famed Griffith Observatory. After your round, you&rsquo;re just a short drive from some of the city&rsquo;s most significant tourist destinations, including the Hollywood Sign, the Observatory and Hollywood Boulevard. </p>



<p>The sun was high in the sky &mdash; and the temperature close to what one could reasonably term &ldquo;warm&rdquo; &mdash; by the time our round at Roosevelt drew to a close. After a short jaunt up to the Observatory, we headed towards the food destination the promised to make our break our trip: pizza.</p>



<p>As an honest-to-goodness New Yorker, eating pizza outside of the 10-mile radius surrounding my apartment sounds roughly as enjoyable as having my tongue cut out with a 7-iron. Truth is: I don&rsquo;t even <em>like </em>pizza that much, so if I&rsquo;m gonna eat it, it better be New York quality.</p>



<div class="g-block-wrapper g-block-wrapper--image g-block-wrapper--full g-block-wrapper--diptych g-block-wrapper--align-right">
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          <img class="lazy g-block-image__file" src="https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/pizzeria-bianco.jpg" alt="pizzeria bianco los angeles" srcset="https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/pizzeria-bianco.jpg?width=300 300w, https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/pizzeria-bianco.jpg?width=720 600w, https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/pizzeria-bianco.jpg?width=1280 900w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, (max-width: 600px) 50vw, (max-width: 900px) 33vw, 900px" style="background-image: url(https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/pizzeria-bianco.jpg?width=30);" decoding="async" loading="lazy"/>        <figcaption>
              <span class="g-block-image__caption">Pizzeria Bianco in all its glory.</span>
      
              <span class="g-block-image__credits">James Colgan/GOLF</span>
          </figcaption>
  </figure>

      <figure class="g-block g-block-image g-block-image--diptych ">
              <img class="lazy g-block-image__file" src="https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/eater-la.jpg" alt="phanny's burritos" srcset="https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/eater-la.jpg?width=300 300w, https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/eater-la.jpg?width=720 600w, https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/eater-la.jpg?width=1280 900w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, (max-width: 600px) 50vw, (max-width: 900px) 33vw, 900px" style="background-image: url(https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/eater-la.jpg?width=30);" decoding="async" loading="lazy"/>            <figcaption>
                  <span class="g-block-image__caption">Phanny&rsquo;s in Redondo Beach, open since 1982, tabs itself as &ldquo;The Home of the Breakfast Burrito.&rdquo;</span>
        
                  <span class="g-block-image__credits">Instagram | @eater_LA</span>
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<p>We stumbled into <a href="https://www.pizzeriabianco.com/los-angeles">Pizzeria Bianco</a> on the recommendation of about half the eating Internet. In the years since it opened, the pizza joint &mdash; named after founder and head chef Chris Bianco &mdash; has earned more publicity than some members of the royal family. Its reservations are booked up months in advance. Its menu sells out daily. It has been called one of the best slices in the <em>country.</em> </p>



<p>On weekdays, Pizzeria Bianco offers counter-service, which is how we earned an audience with the chic fashion district storefront. After an endless line and a short wait, our pizza arrived. </p>



<p>I was too deep in rapturous bliss to notice the reactions on my coworkers&rsquo; faces as we bit into our first slice. It was <em>perfect </em>&mdash; the bakery-soft dough bubbled to perfection by a ripping-hot wood-burning oven; the tangy yet sweet yet savory sauce; the cheese that strung off every bite like a ball of yarn.</p>



<p>&ldquo;Well James,&rdquo; one companion said, gesturing out at the line. &ldquo;That was absolutely worth it.&rdquo;</p>



<p>At $25 per person, I felt compelled to agree.</p>



<p>We emerged from our food coma at the completion of another 40-minute drive and headed to our second tee time of the day at Penmar, another $18 muni located right next to the Santa Monica airport. Much like its cousin Roosevelt, Penmar is a simple golf course with a strikingly complex culture. Legend &mdash; and club logo &mdash; has it that Harrison Ford crashed a WWII-era biplane shortly after takeoff onto one of the course&rsquo;s fairways. The 19th-hole restaurant, which was rebuilt during the pandemic, hosts a locally famous concert series. Creative imports and LA lifers share fivesomes (not foursomes!), which are announced over a crackling loudspeaker. Pace of play is glacial and conditioning is largely nonexistent, but vibes roll in early and continue well beyond the 6th-hole beer dropbox. Our group stuck around for a post-round pint before heading off to dinner, grasping onto the last whisps of sunlight and unpretentious hipster energy that has endeared thousands of Los Angelians to their beloved <a href="https://golf.lacity.org/course_penmar/">&ldquo;Penmar by the Sea.&rdquo;</a></p>


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            <a href="https://golf.com/travel/topgolf-muni-mondays-el-segundo-lakes/">
                <img class="lazy inner" src="https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ElSegundo-1.jpg" alt="The Lakes at El Segundo." srcset="https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ElSegundo-1.jpg?width=300 300w, https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ElSegundo-1.jpg?width=720 600w, https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ElSegundo-1.jpg?width=1280 900w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, (max-width: 600px) 50vw, (max-width: 900px) 33vw, 900px" style="background-image: url(https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ElSegundo-1.jpg?width=30);" decoding="async" loading="lazy"/>            </a>
        </div>
        <figcaption>
            <blockquote><a href="https://golf.com/travel/topgolf-muni-mondays-el-segundo-lakes/">Last year, Topgolf took over a golf course. Here&rsquo;s how it&rsquo;s going</a></blockquote>
                <span class="author">
        <span>By:</span>
        <span class="author__inner">
                    <a href="https://golf.com/writers/josh-sens/">
                Josh Sens            </a>
            
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</section>


<p>A quick (yet memorably delicious) dinner at Sonoritas Prime Tacos was next on the docket (we escaped at $50 per person), followed by the fourth and final tee time of our trip, which was scheduled suspiciously for 9:30 p.m.</p>



<p>The Lakes at El Segundo has earned <a href="https://golf.com/travel/topgolf-muni-mondays-el-segundo-lakes/">considerable pixel space on this website</a>, so I won&rsquo;t bore you with too much detail. A <em>very </em>long story short: Topgolf assumed ownership over the golf course after it came in and built a facility on some of the course&rsquo;s land. Today, it operates as one-half mega-luxe Topgolf facility and one-half 10-hole golf course. Topgolf has gone through considerable effort &mdash; and investment &mdash; to bring the fun of the driving range experience to the course next door, incorporating live music, LED lights, a TopTracer camera and a beverage cart inspired by Southern California. For $25 a head, it was a bargain look at what might be the future of golf entertainment. </p>



<p><strong>Golf: </strong>$61</p>



<p><strong>Food and drink (per person): </strong>$89.21</p>



<p><strong>Parking: </strong>$16</p>



<p><strong>Day total: </strong>$166.21</p>



<p><strong>Trip total: </strong>$1204.31</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-i-could-have-saved">How I could have saved</h3>



<p>Beautiful and convenient as our Airbnb was, I found myself wondering if there were similar BNBs that wouldn&rsquo;t have run us the same cost for only three nights of use. </p>



<p>The food we ate in Los Angeles was utterly delicious, but it was also comparatively expensive. Some of that is due to naturally higher pricing in LA, and some is due to a certain writer&rsquo;s (me) proclivity for good (and sometimes expensive) food. A smarter traveler would have avoided paying for food and snacks at the Clippers game and instead snuck in some pregame Korean Barbeque at Hanu, a spot down the block from the arena. </p>



<p>Travel was expensive, but we spent a little more than $400 per person, all-in, on our two days in the city of Los Angeles. That&rsquo;s not bad, particularly considering that four different sets of greens fees are included as part of that agreement. </p>



<p><em>To learn more about the trip, check out the video linked below.</em></p>



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<iframe title="48 Golfy Hours in LA | An Epic Cliffside Bargain" width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gajw2X8k2fE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/greens-fees-2-day-golf-trip-los-angeles-destination-golf/">What I spent on a marathon 2-day golf trip in Los Angeles</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
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      <guid isPermaLink="false">https://golf.com/?post_type=article&amp;p=15507438</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 03 Feb 2023 15:46:19 +0000</pubDate>
      <title><![CDATA[This course is among golf's toughest tee times. It's also a bargain]]></title>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>Los Verdes might be the most scenic muni in Los Angeles County. That makes it a must-play — but it's complicated.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/los-verdes-la-destination-golf/">This course is among golf&#8217;s toughest tee times. It&#8217;s also a bargain</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
]]></description>
      <link>https://golf.com/travel/los-verdes-la-destination-golf/</link>
      <category><![CDATA[Travel]]></category>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Dylan Dethier]]></dc:creator>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Los Verdes might be the most scenic muni in Los Angeles County. That makes it a must-play — but it's complicated.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/los-verdes-la-destination-golf/">This course is among golf&#8217;s toughest tee times. It&#8217;s also a bargain</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Los Verdes might be the most scenic muni in Los Angeles County. That makes it a must-play — but it's complicated.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/los-verdes-la-destination-golf/">This course is among golf&#8217;s toughest tee times. It&#8217;s also a bargain</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd">
<html><body><p class="first">My playing partner and I took off in a dead run in the direction of the 15th tee, racing the setting sun.</p>



<p>Running on the course is generally a sign of something good. It&rsquo;s a sign of a special round (something worth running for) and a solid pace of play (room to run ahead). Granted, most golfers don&rsquo;t do much running. But diehards know the feeling of chasing daylight and charging towards the finish because there&rsquo;s something satisfying about finishing 18, even if it&rsquo;s in the dark. <em>Especially</em> if it&rsquo;s in the dark.</p>



<p>My coworker James and I were hell-bent on finishing this particular round. In part because we&rsquo;d traveled to Los Angeles, searching for the soul of the city&rsquo;s golf ahead of the Genesis Invitational and, later in the summer, the U.S. Open. (It&rsquo;s a big year for L.A. golf.) In part we rushed because we&rsquo;d anticipated the City of Sun but had been greeted with a torrential downpour instead, suffering through a rainout the previous day plus more drowned plans that morning. And in part we wanted to finish because we&rsquo;d secured a prime tee time at Los Verdes &mdash;&nbsp;and that&rsquo;s an accomplishment in itself.</p>


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<p>Los Verdes is, simply put, one of the most competitive tee times in the world. That means something different than the list of &ldquo;most desired&rdquo; tee times &mdash; those are likely the exclusive, mysterious bucket-list courses like Augusta National or Cypress Point. Plenty of people <em>want</em> to play those and never will. But of the tee times you supposedly have access to, Los Verdes is among the toughest tickets, calling to mind the words of Yogi Berra: </p>



<p>&ldquo;Nobody goes there anymore. It&rsquo;s too crowded.&rdquo;</p>



<p>Los Verdes is here for you. It&rsquo;s a muni. It&rsquo;s affordable. It exists to be accessible. And yet it&rsquo;s hard to access. The course is owned by the city of Rancho Palos Verdes, a coastal city southwest of downtown L.A. It sits atop a bluff overlooking the city and boasts sweeping views over the Pacific and nearby Catalina Island. And it costs less than 50 bucks to play.</p>



<p>Fifty bucks is a lot of money to do any activity, but let&rsquo;s put that in perspective. The peak green fee at Los Verdes is $48.25 on weekends and holidays. That drops all the way to $18 on weekday afternoons. It drops to $22.50 if you&rsquo;re a senior. It drops to $5 if you&rsquo;re a junior. Just down the bluff, Trump National offers the same sweeping views and its rates can rise to $500 or more on weekends &mdash; and even at that rate, it typically sells out. I&rsquo;m not suggesting both courses are offering the same product, but one thing is for sure: Los Verdes is a screamin&rsquo; deal.</p>



<p>As a result, it&rsquo;s frequented by wealthy residents of surrounding Rancho Palos Verdes as well as enthusiasts from every corner of the county. This is southern California, after all, which has golfers and golfing weather aplenty. Despite <a href="https://golf.com/news/malcolm-gladwell-wrong-golf-10-things/">the objections</a> of Malcolm Gladwell, the supply of L.A. courses is actually far outstripped by the demand, particularly given the golf boom of the past two years. Daily-fee courses have increased their rates accordingly. But the county&rsquo;s munis have done their best to stay relatively affordable. Even among those, Los Verdes stands out thanks to its awe-inspiring views.</p>



<p>We&rsquo;d made a deal with the devil on this afternoon, a Tuesday in early January: We&rsquo;d traded cold, rain and mud in exchange for limited crowds. The starter, layered against wet and wind, laughed as he observed our good fortune.</p>



<p>&ldquo;This <em>never</em> happens here,&rdquo; he said.</p>



<div class="g-block-wrapper g-block-wrapper--image g-block-wrapper--inline g-block-wrapper--align-right">
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          <img class="lazy g-block-image__file" src="https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/JamesColganPuttingSUnsetLosVerdes.jpg" alt="" srcset="https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/JamesColganPuttingSUnsetLosVerdes.jpg?width=300 300w, https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/JamesColganPuttingSUnsetLosVerdes.jpg?width=720 600w, https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/JamesColganPuttingSUnsetLosVerdes.jpg?width=1280 900w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, (max-width: 600px) 50vw, (max-width: 900px) 33vw, 900px" style="background-image: url(https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/JamesColganPuttingSUnsetLosVerdes.jpg?width=30);" decoding="async" loading="lazy"/>        <figcaption>
              <span class="g-block-image__caption">James putting out on No. 16.</span>
      
              <span class="g-block-image__credits">Tiffani Lynch</span>
          </figcaption>
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  </div>


<p>The top inch of turf was slick. Our tee shots plugged or gathered turf on their sides. But the pace was excellent and our surroundings got better as the day went on. The rain gave way to harmless clouds and then, as we got to the end of our first nine, rays of sun came charging through.</p>



<p>What&rsquo;s the responsibility of a municipal golf course? It depends who you ask. One obligation is to provide community access to a famously inaccessible sport. That&rsquo;s weighed against the obligations to provide a top-tier golfing experience, of course. And both of those are balanced with the obligation to make (or at least not <em>lose</em>) money for the city.</p>



<p>Behind us the course filled with eager high schoolers, each of whom had paid $3 to play. (Revenue maximization clearly wasn&rsquo;t the priority there, either.) Up ahead we crossed paths with Dan Burns, a longtime member who&rsquo;d waited a decade for a spot to open up. He seemed to take pride in telling us that Los Verdes is one of the most-played courses in the world. He considers it home.</p>



<p>There are drawbacks to a course being this popular, of course. Because Los Verdes has maxed out on demand, there&rsquo;s no real incentive to max out the potential of the course itself. A small, nimble crew tends to its fairways and greens, and while our putts rolled true (the clear priority, as it should be) there were plenty of bare lies, uneven cuts and dead spots. You&rsquo;d never mistake it for last week&rsquo;s PGA Tour host, fellow California muni Torrey Pines. But then, Torrey Pines charges close to $300. And <em>they&rsquo;re</em> always sold out, too.</p>



<p>At Los Verdes (and Torrey Pines, and plenty other desired munis) a new dilemma has emerged as locals fight for tee times: Bots. Eager, innovative golfers have devised ways to trick the booking systems and crawl the site instantly, ensuring they get first crack at tee times the moment they&rsquo;re released. Some authentication systems have slowed their success, but they haven&rsquo;t shut down automated approaches altogether. Getting the tee time you want at an L.A. muni sometimes means having a bot guy. How strange is that?</p>



<p>We couldn&rsquo;t help but wonder at Los Verdes&rsquo; calculations as we made our way to the back nine, spirits rising as the sun was setting. Surely, if it were better conditioned, this nine could measure up against some of the great munis in America. But again, the point of Los Verdes isn&rsquo;t to compete with the great munis in America. It&rsquo;s to provide golf to its constituents. And there was something appealing about the way the course felt stripped down to its core components.</p>



<div class="g-block-wrapper g-block-wrapper--image g-block-wrapper--indented g-block-wrapper--align-right">
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          <img class="lazy g-block-image__file" src="https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/LosVerdes.jpg" alt="Los Verdes Golf Course." srcset="https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/LosVerdes.jpg?width=300 300w, https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/LosVerdes.jpg?width=720 600w, https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/LosVerdes.jpg?width=1280 900w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, (max-width: 600px) 50vw, (max-width: 900px) 33vw, 900px" style="background-image: url(https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/LosVerdes.jpg?width=30);" decoding="async" loading="lazy"/>        <figcaption>
              <span class="g-block-image__caption">Los Verdes&rsquo; imperfections feel irrelevant at sunset.</span>
      
              <span class="g-block-image__credits">Sean Zak</span>
          </figcaption>
  </figure>

  </div>


<p>The 10th hole was a neat par-4, doglegging left between trees. The 11th tee gave the first hint of the views to come and set up a thrilling downhill tee shot on a drivable par-4. But it was 15 &mdash; the hole we&rsquo;d been running to &mdash;&nbsp;that got us up against the edge of the world. We stopped in wonder at the back of the green, which is set onto a cliffside, looking down at the community around and everything beyond.</p>



<p>James beat me on the 16th, a dogleg left par 5 that begins with a tee shot over a deep ravine. His nifty approach sealed my fate, though hopefully I&rsquo;ve buried that detail far enough down in the story that most readers won&rsquo;t make it this far. We&rsquo;d battled through a game of &ldquo;Longest Yard,&rdquo; a skins game where every hole is worth its value in yards (a 490-yard hole is worth 490 points, for example). He cozied his first putt into gimme range, silhouetted against the impending dusk. I&rsquo;d raced and I&rsquo;d lost.</p>



<p>But we continued on up the 17th fairway. The last two holes would be just for satisfaction.</p>



<p><em>You can watch the first part of the video chronicling our 48 hours in L.A. below.</em></p>


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<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/los-verdes-la-destination-golf/">This course is among golf&#8217;s toughest tee times. It&#8217;s also a bargain</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
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      <pubDate>Fri, 03 Feb 2023 13:55:27 +0000</pubDate>
      <title><![CDATA[48 (golfy) hours in Los Angeles]]></title>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>It’s a HUGE year for golf in Los Angeles, so we parachuted in for 48 hours to understand golf’s place in the city. On Day 1 we were greeted by shocking weather but persevered in time for an epic sunset battle.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/48-golfy-hours-in-los-angeles/">48 (golfy) hours in Los Angeles</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
]]></description>
      <link>https://golf.com/travel/48-golfy-hours-in-los-angeles/</link>
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      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It’s a HUGE year for golf in Los Angeles, so we parachuted in for 48 hours to understand golf’s place in the city. On Day 1 we were greeted by shocking weather but persevered in time for an epic sunset battle.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/48-golfy-hours-in-los-angeles/">48 (golfy) hours in Los Angeles</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
      <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It’s a HUGE year for golf in Los Angeles, so we parachuted in for 48 hours to understand golf’s place in the city. On Day 1 we were greeted by shocking weather but persevered in time for an epic sunset battle.</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/48-golfy-hours-in-los-angeles/">48 (golfy) hours in Los Angeles</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
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<html><body><p class="first">It&rsquo;s a HUGE year for golf in Los Angeles, so we parachuted in for 48 hours to understand golf&rsquo;s place in the city. On Day 1 we were greeted by shocking weather but persevered in time for an epic sunset battle.</p>
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<p>The post <a href="https://golf.com/travel/48-golfy-hours-in-los-angeles/">48 (golfy) hours in Los Angeles</a> appeared first on <a href="https://golf.com">Golf</a>.</p>
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