Ignorant question: I’ll be in Santa Monica in early July, is this the correct local spot to find a tee time?
Hey man. I live here. So do a few others. There’s better golf in Chechnya than this forgotten golf town. Are you bringing clubs?
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My original plan was to bring clubs but now it sounds like the wedding shower my wife is going to isn’t going to be as long as we thought. Plus with your glowing recommendation, maybe it’s not in the cards for this trip.
I’ve got two tee times open for 8 am on Friday at Rustic Canyon if anyone wants to join up with me and my buddy.
I may head to Soule for an afternoon 18 as well.
Bummer, I’d join but I won’t be in town until late Friday night.
What’s up Refuge-L.A. - I have a very random question. My brother is a college Sophmore at Loyola in New Orleans and landed a music engineering internship in L.A. for the summer .
Bad news: he just found out the place he planned on staying for 6 weeks, is only letting him stay there for 2 weeks. Does anyone here rent an airbnb or room?
Greatly appreciate any leads
do you know where his internship is? LA is a huge land area and depending on location he might be better served by looking at specific areas
Not LA but this is a major heads up to anyone venturing up to Santa Barbara…
The Mrs. & I went up to SB for the weekend and was pumped to play Sandpiper for the first time in over a year and HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHAT HAPPENED!!!??? Pro shop told me on Friday that the rate was discounted to $100 due to some of the greens being “worked on”. I pressed for details and they were super vague, but hey WTF I’m on a mini vacation and I’m playing golf next to the ocean how bad can it be? It was bad. I lost count but I’d say a little less than half the greens were just murdered. Huge swaths of just sand/dried mud. Some evidence of punching but not that much. Conflicting stories from locals in my group & the kids working the outside are that they somehow got kikuyu encroaching on the greens (how???) and then sprayed them or some fungal situation. Literally the worst green conditions I’ve seen in my life. Just be honest, I’m still gonna pay and play but now I feel cheated.
Rest of course was so-so at best. Random clumps of super long (calf high) grass all over the course, bunkers were pure mud/hard pack and huge variability in the rough. In-between areas of holes were either dirt, dead grass or mix of weeds in spots. Just a disgrace to see a D+ golf course on that A+ land. Beanie baby dude needs to either sell or break out the checkbook because this course is literally just un-playable for the foreseeable future.
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Yeah we were supposed to have an event there a week or so ago. Pro called the guys organizing and said we should cancel because of how bad things were. I think Tom Doak is doing a full redesign next year so maybe they are just letting it go to shit before it gets torn up.
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I was thinking about trying to get out there in October so this is great info, thanks. What other spot should I check out in SB (not Ojai, I’ve played Soule Park before)?
Alisal was pretty good a few years back and I’ve heard good things about Glen Annie but never played. Slim pickings up there.
An hour’s drive up to La Purisima. Real fun course.
They also do great deals (occasionally) for on property stay and play deals if you have a group.
1 spot open for tomorrow 9/3 at Rancho Park 18 for 9:10am. First come first serve.
Hey LA NLU, I’ll be in the area the weekend of 10/2-10/3 for the ASU-UCLA game. Would love to get a round in while over there. Never played in Southern California before so open to recommendations and would love to tee it up with a few of you if it works out. I see Rustic Canyon isn’t in LA County per the thread’s name, but it was one course I’ve been interested in due to its publicity and wasn’t sure of a better thread to ask about it than this one. If you all have other suggestions as well though, I’m all ears. Cheers!
I’ve only played Rustic once (2.5 years ago now, holy fuck?!) but I still think about it, so unless the conditties have gone to shit, or it’s a 5.5 hour crawl round there these days, I would personally say go play it.
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They have not, at least the last time I was there it was pretty pure.
This, unfortunately, is accurate if you’re looking to go on a weekend. I’ve never played on a Friday so you may have better luck then, if you’re in town on time.
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Thanks for the feedback, both! I likely won’t be getting into LA until Friday night so will need to be a weekend tee time. I may ditch work though and drive over early if work is looking like it’s in a reasonable spot Thursday night.
I just checked my stats and a round in February took me 4:58 on a Saturday. It really is a great course though. If you’re staying in or around Pasadena you could try Santa Anita, it’s nothing special conditioning-wise but it’s a very funky course that I like quite a bit. You’ll also be pretty close to Industry Hills, they have two courses there, Babe and Ike. Ike hosts quite a few pro tournaments, US Open qualifiers and Monday qualifiers for the Genesis back when it was still an Open, that kind of thing. I’ve never played Babe. They’re both on the expensive side, ~$120ish on the weekends. The Griffith Park city courses are pretty strong too, although pace of play will be an issue there. There’s two, Wilson and Harding; Wilson was featured on a Strapped episode.
None of these are close to Rustic in terms of quality but they’re all solid options IMO that will be much closer.
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Where are you staying/are you willing to travel to play? Rustic is great, however, my new complaint (always need to complain about something) is they are essentially doing surge pricing on their rounds when booking ahead of time. As a single you are likely able to show up early and walk on but may wait a little. Another great courses Northwestern to LA is Olivas Links as well as Los Robles (pretty awesome conditions albeit not the most #woke of golf course designs). As for the LA courses, I would recommend Rancho Park (impossible to get a tee time but again, if you show up as a single may be able to walk on, show up really early), Griffith park courses.
I recently moved back here and I may be joining @Randy in the shrink the game endeavor. It is impossible to get good tee times around LA on the good courses. Or maybe I am doing it wrong and looking for any advice.
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