los angeles

Day 6: Get There

Nice day at Los Feliz.

Nice day at Los Feliz.

This year marks the fifth year of my golf career, which means I wish I would’ve started playing at least 25 years ago. Like my newfound love of running 5Ks, the aches and pains I suffer through now would’ve been more bearable as a young man. Every day reminds me that middle-aged healing takes much longer.

I learned to play golf at Los Feliz Municipal Golf Course. One day in 2010, I asked my brother to play a round with me. I’m not sure why I decided to do it and I don’t recall his exact response, but it was along the lines of “what the …?!” Neither of us had ever picked up a club before; the only sport we played in our younger days was basketball (with a smattering of football and baseball).

It’s no coincidence that the course was featured in one of my favorite movies, Swingers:

That movie and that scene in particular was a huge hit with me and my buddies, so I thought it was appropriate that I played my initial round there. I’ll have to dig out my scorecard from the garage someday for a good laugh: I scored either a 62 or 63 … on a par 27 course.

Still, Los Feliz was the beginning of my love affair with the game. In the years since (when I haven’t been dealing with a bad knee, back, or Achilles), I’ve played rounds all over Southern California and a couple of courses in Las Vegas, getting both of my brothers into the game and meeting lots of great people along the way. I’ve volunteered a few times at the L.A. Golf Show, won a putter signed by Ben Crenshaw, and was a walking scorer at the Soboba Golf Classic, where young pro Russell Henley was turning heads before making the leap to the PGA Tour.

Now that my nephew has taken a liking to the sport, I find myself revisiting some of the par-3 courses where I honed my skills. It’s been a blast, not to mention confidence-booster, hitting greens again on some of the shorter holes. It’s been meaningful sharing the game with him, teaching him the rules and etiquette as we bond at the courses that I learned at with his dad and other uncle.

I failed to reach my goal of breaking 100 last year, but I’m giving it another shot in 2015 and if I don’t do it, that’s fine. I’ll gladly settle for the quality time with my nephew on a golf course.

 

 

Day 3: One Down, 99 To Go

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Like most people I know, Yelp is my go-to site/app for finding a place to eat. Back in the day I would thumb through the Yellow Pages’ restaurant section, going through each listing until something piqued my interest. A few years ago, Yelp changed this, giving me access to restaurant information and reviews as well. As I used it more, I noticed that there were all types of businesses reviewed on Yelp and I used it to plan some cool dates.

I received my first perk from Yelp in February 2011, before I even had a Yelp account: two tickets to the L.A. Derby Dolls, thanks to LA Community Manager Katie B. tweeting about a giveaway. My girlfriend and I went on our date and had a fun night of roller derby and food truck eats.

I created a Yelp account a few months later and wrote my first Yelp review, giving three stars to the Colton Golf Club. Although I wasn’t exactly prolific in my review writing early on (I had a grand total of 11 reviews by the end of 2012), I was slowly but surely becoming a Yelper. My reviews weren’t James Beard material, but I was honest and tried to be as informative as possible. I also used the site to plan a few more date nights with my girlfriend (who eventually became my wife!).

This all changed in 2013 when I signed up for a write-100-reviews-in-one-year challenge. My wife and I attended our first of many cool Yelp events. In November of 2013 I became a part of the Yelp Elite, a few weeks before I completed my 100th review for the year. In 2014 I was a Yelp Elite again, and pushed my yearly total to 120 reviews.

My Quest to Blog Every Day in 2015 has been partly inspired by my reaching my Yelp goals. I hope to be Elite again this year and I started another 100 reviews challenge today. Here’s my first review of 2015. Only 99 more to go!