Sports
Inside the hip L.A. golf gathering for those 'who were never invited — but always belonged'
It’s 7 p.m. on a Thursday at the driving range at the Westside’s Rancho Park Golf Course.
At one end of the raised platform, the stalls are mostly occupied by polo shirt-wearing men quietly practicing their swings. But at the other end, a crowd gathers. People of all backgrounds are vibing to hip-hop and Afrobeats playing over two portable speakers and socializing over beer and snacks from the food stand. They’re dressed in streetwear and stylish sports apparel — Jordan 1s, fitted caps, tennis skirts and baggy pants. One woman is wearing tall platform boots and a patterned skirt and hugging friends. When someone steps up to take a swing, others watch and offer support and pointers.
“Remember to breathe,” someone says.
“Relax your grip,” advises another.
Aspiring golf pro Rob Perea, right, teaches beginning golfers during a Swang golf event.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Not your typical golf meetup, this is Swang, an L.A. golf collective that hosts a regular gathering called “Free Range,” where attendees can receive casual guidance from longtime golfers — and just hang out. With the welcoming motto “pull up, tap in,” founder Modi Oyewole created Swang to provide a space for the golf-curious and those who’ve been searching for like-minded folks to play with in the historically white- and male-dominated sport. He says that for generations, entering the world of golf has been both financially and culturally difficult.
“When I ask people how they found out about us, a lot of the stories are the same,” says Oyewole, 38. “People never felt like this was a thing they could do. But with this, we are quite literally saying, f— all that. We can do this too. You can wear what you want. You can be you and still come play.”
Swang golf collective founder Modi Oyewole, left, with Juliet Udeochu.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
A small camera crew follows Oyewole, who is wearing a Toro y Moi T-shirt, cargos and Adidas sneakers, capturing content for Swang’s social media accounts. He takes a powerful swing, sending the ball flying onto the field. You’d think that he’s been playing for years, but golf is a new passion for the multifaceted creative who’s worked at various record labels and for brands like Nike and Redbull.
Oyewole’s father introduced him to the sport about 20 years ago during the height of Tiger Woods’ career. “I think seeing a Black person in this sport that’s predominantly white and him dominating it definitely got my dad like, ‘Alright, we can do this now. We have representation,’” Oyewole recalls. His dad began taking him and his younger brother to a public driving range in their District of Columbia neighborhood until it shut down.
Oyewole didn’t think about golf again until several years later, when one of his friends invited him to the Hypegolf Invitational hosted by Hypebeast in Santa Clarita — an invitation he accepted begrudgingly, he says. But what he saw surprised him.
“This was my first time experiencing golf in it’s entirety, ever. I’d never been to a golf course, let alone a very fancy country club, and I’d also never seen golf presented in this way,” he recalls.
One of the first people he saw at Hypegolf was rapper Macklemore, who was rocking a clothing collaboration between his golf line Bogey Boys and Adidas. Every hole on the course was sponsored by a different brand. DJs were spinning upbeat music, and all of the attendees were, in Oyewole’s words, “swaggy.”
Blaise Butler of Los Angeles sets up a golf ball on the tee, left, while attendees pose for photos. Swang’s Instagram bio reads that it’s a community for those “who were never invited — but always belonged.”
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
He was also amazed to run into several people within his orbit who he didn’t know played golf. “It was just one of those moments where I was like, ‘Wait, I feel like they figured out a way to make this digestible to a person like me,’” says Oyewole. “It was eye-opening because it taught me that the game was cool, and it wasn’t the game that I was upset at. It was the context surrounding the game.”
A few weeks later, Oyewole quit his job as the vice president of creative, experiential and content development at Def Jam Recording. With his newfound free time, he started playing golf at the Maggie Hathaway Golf Course in South Central — named after a longtime civil rights activist who helped break the color barrier on L.A.’s public golf courses — with a friend who gifted him hand-me-down clubs. Before long, he was hooked.
He hosted the first Swang event in August 2023 at the Rancho Park driving range. Oyewole and two of his friends brought a speaker to play music, along with golf clubs and balls for attendees to practice with. About 25 people showed up, including a few golf influencers like Jacques Slade and Loulou Gonzalez — some of whom had never played golf before and others who’ve been playing their whole lives.
“Just seeing that was magical, but I think what was more magical than that was hearing these longtime golfers say, “Man, I’ve been golfing forever and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Oyewole says. “You’re not going to see this makeup of people in this size at the driving range. It doesn’t happen. Golf doesn’t look like this.”
Swang arrives in L.A. at a time when golf is booming in popularity post-pandemic, particularly among women and young people. Although golf has long been perceived as a sport that “older” people play, the National Golf Foundation revealed that in 2024, the largest group of on-course golfers — nearly 6.3 million players — were between the ages of 18 to 34. Since 2019, there’s been a 41% increase of female golfers, the NGF reports, and every year since 2020, roughly 3.3 million people have hit the course for the first time. The surge can be credited to content creators and YouTubers amplifying the sport online, trendy apparel brands, shows like “Full Swing” on Netflix, nightlife-adjacent establishments like TopGolf and collectives like Swang who are introducing the sport to a new demographic.
A crowd fills the top level of the driving range.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Swang attracts roughly 75 to 100 regular attendees at each Free Range session. Among them are creatives, musicians, entrepreneurs, tech professionals, actors, marketers and more.
Although some people bring their own golf gear to the meetups, none is required. It’s also “a safe place to suck,” Oyewole says.
Prior to discovering Swang, Adil Kadir’s only experience with the sport was going to TopGolf, but it was something he wanted to get better at. As someone who worked in the tech industry, he viewed golfing as a “language” or entry point that could improve his “ability to integrate into the world of business.”
But through Swang, he discovered that golfing was also fun. “Nothing can really stimulate the amount of dopamine you get from actually hitting the ball the right way,” he says.
Beginning golfers get individual instruction.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Stacey Esteban was nervous about attending Free Range for the first time because of negative experiences she had at other golf ranges in L.A.
“I’ll hear side comments from other people who don’t look like me, and they’re trying to give me lessons that I never asked for, and it doesn’t feel safe for me. But here, I was like, ‘It’s safe,’ ” says Esteban, who started playing golf during the pandemic. “These are people I’d want to talk to and hang out with.”
Josh Hubberman, 43, has been playing golf on and off since he was a child, but he didn’t get back into the sport until he went to a Swang meetup last year. “Driving ranges are often quiet [with] two people in a bay, and you’re kind of just politely waiting for a bay to open,” says Hubbeman, who is the co-founder of the creative venture studio Cthdrl. “Then when you show up at Swang, we have music playing. We take over 10-plus bays, and it’s a big social event as well, so there’s an energy that immediately, you get on site and it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s got to be Swang!’ ” About a year later, Hubberman reached out to Oyewole about teaming up with Cthdrl and working together to turn Swang into a viable business.
Swang is already making an impact on the golf industry in L.A. and beyond. In August, the collective programmed the music at an exclusive TopGolf event featuring rapper Larry June. Earlier this year, Swang partnered with the Rolling Loud music festival to co-produce a golf invitational and release a capsule collection. Swang also hosted a tournament in L.A. called Spicoli’s Scramble — in honor of Oyewole’s late best friend — and raised $20,000 for the Grammy Museum and Recording Academy’s Quinn Coleman scholarship.
The larger vision for Swang, Oyewole says, is to continue hosting the Free Range sessions and eventually add a membership component that would allow members to access exclusive events and experiences such as group trips to golf tournaments around the globe. The collective recently started creating short- and long-form social media content, and they will debut their first Swang apparel piece at Paris Fashion Week later this month.
Back at the driving range, chill R&B music is playing, and a handful of attendees are taking their final swings for the night before the overhead lights at the range shut off.
Reni Somoye, 32, was about to leave, but she decides to stay after another attendee encourages her to hit the ball one last time. She’s been watching other people throughout the night and realized that she needed to swing more powerfully. When it’s her turn, she walks toward the edge of the stall, pauss, swings and then strikes the ball so hard it flies out onto the field. The group that was mingling nearby begins to cheer.
She turns around, smiling from ear to ear, and daps up the coach.
“Alright,” she says. “Alright, that was good!”
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
WASHINGTON — The Dodgers are scheduled to visit the White House on July 23 to celebrate their latest World Series title.
“President Trump is excited to welcome the Los Angeles Dodgers BACK to the White House to celebrate their World Series championship!,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement to The Times.
The date falls on a scheduled off day in the middle of a nine-game East Coast road trip for the Dodgers. The team will play three games in Philadelphia against the Phillies July 20-22 before ending the trip with a three-game series against the New York Mets July 24 to 26.
The visit continues a tradition from the Dodgers’ two previous World Series championships. They were hosted by President Biden in 2021 and President Trump in April 2025.
After the Dodgers claimed their second consecutive World Series title with a dramatic Game 7 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays, a visit to the White House was planned, but it wasn’t until Thursday that a date was officially booked and confirmed.
Questions swirled around whether players would decline the visit this year after it did not happen during a scheduled visit to Washington in April.
Kiké Hernández said in 2018 he was unsure he would have gone had the Dodgers won the World Series the previous year. Mookie Betts said he was undecided and needed to talk it over with his family when last year’s visit was announced. After winning his first World Series with the Boston Red Sox in 2018, Betts skipped their trip to the White House the following year during Trump’s first term.
Both players, along with every returning member of the 2024 team who was with the team during its road trip, participated in the visit. The only notable absence was first baseman Freddie Freeman, who remained in Los Angeles to nurse an ankle injury.
Manager Dave Roberts, who indicated in comments to The Times in 2019 he might not go to the White House if Trump was president, also participated in last year’s ceremony.
Asked at the Dodgers’ fan festival in January about the possibility of returning to the White House, Roberts told The Times’ Bill Shaikin: “For me, I stand by: I’m a baseball manager. That’s my job.”
“I was raised — by a man who served our country for 30 years — to respect the highest office in our country,” Roberts said. “For me, it doesn’t matter who is in the office, I’m going to go to the White House. I’ve never tried to be political. … For me, I am going to continue to try to do what tradition says and not try to make political statements, because I am not a politician.”
Clayton Kershaw, who retired after last season but was on Team USA for this year’s World Baseball Classic, told The Times in the spring that he was aware Dodgers fans are split over whether the team should visit the White House again this year, but he said he is looking forward to it.
“I went when President Biden was in office. I’m going to go when President Trump is in office,” Kershaw said. “To me, it’s just about getting to go to the White House. You don’t get that opportunity every day, so I’m excited to go.”
Times deputy sports editor Ed Guzman contributed to this report.
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All eyes were on Caitlin Clark on Wednesday night as she made her anticipated return from injury in a road matchup in Los Angeles.
But instead of a triumphant comeback, the Fever spent the entire night chasing the Sparks as Clark’s rough return fueled a 106-92 rout.
The superstar never found a groove, looking completely out of sync in her return from a back injury.
STEPHANIE WHITE GIVES CAITLIN CLARK STATUS UPDATE AHEAD OF FEVER-SPARKS, BUT HER NEXT MOVE RAISES QUESTIONS
Caitlin Clark huddles with teammates as the Indiana Fever battle the Sparks. (Photo by Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Images) ((Photo by Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Images))
Much of that disjointed performance falls squarely on head coach Stephanie White, who kept Clark on a ridiculously tight leash by limiting her to just 16 minutes. The stop-and-go approach could have sabotaged any chance for the phenom to establish a rhythm.
Clark finished with just 9 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists. Her minus-16 plus-minus told the story.
The Los Angeles Sparks were severely shorthanded, taking the floor without stars Kelsey Plum and Cameron Brink.
MERCURY’S NOW-DELETED SOCIAL MEDIA POST MOCKING CAITLIN CLARK DRAWS SCRUTINY AFTER STAR’S INJURY
Yet while a depleted Sparks roster played to win, Indiana spent the night over-managing its biggest asset.
With Clark on a minutes restriction and Aliyah Boston out of the lineup, Kelsey Mitchell was forced to shoulder the entire offensive burden.
Mitchell did her part, pouring in 29 points while shooting 5-of-9 from beyond the arc.
Caitlin Clark orchestrates the Fever offense as Indiana battles the Los Angeles Sparks in primetime action. (Photo by Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Images) ((Photo by Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Images))
But one hot hand couldn’t stop an efficient LA squad.
The Sparks shot 45% from three-point range, going 9-of-20 from deep to cruise to the 106-92 victory.
White’s next move is to sit Clark against the Mercury on Thursday while Boston returns.
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After Wednesday’s loss to a shorthanded Sparks team, it’s fair to question whether Indiana’s cautious approach is working. The Fever dropped to 12-9.
Caitlin Clark and Dearica Hamby face off as Fever and Sparks battle at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. (Photo by Tyler Ross/NBAE via Getty Images) ((Photo by Tyler Ross/NBAE via Getty Images))
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Mookie Betts’ first hit this series against the Rockies couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. With the crack of the ball against his bat, Tommy Edman scored from third, giving the Dodgers the lead.
And as Betts reached first, he pointed to Freddie Freeman, whose single put Edman in scoring position. It had taken a team effort to overcome another middling start from Roki Sasaki, and Betts, who had little to show before his game-winning hit, took the chance to highlight the joint contribution in the Dodgers’ 4-3 rubber-match win over Colorado (38-56).
“It feels great,” Betts said of his nine-pitch battle. “Helping the boys win, that’s really all it is. We play the game to win, and coming through in a big moment is kind of what, when you’re a kid, playing in the backyard, getting that hit is what you always strive to do, and fortunately, I was able to do it.”
Given a three-run lead in the first inning, brought to the Dodgers by a wild pitch and Kyle Tucker’s two-run, line-drive single to left field, Sasaki seemed set up for success.
Still, he gave away the lead as quickly as it came. In the second inning, he left a fastball too far over the plate, and third baseman Kyle Karros drove the ball over the left-center wall. The slider he dealt two batters later to second baseman Edouard Julien also crossed the zone too far over the plate, and Julien rounded the bases with another homer. In the third, a sacrifice fly by Mickey Moniak evened the scored, 3-3.
Sasaki’s troubles this season have been hard to pin down since his last win on May 23, as Sasaki tries to claw back the triple-digit velocity that’s escaped him as of late.
Against the Rockies, his fastball topped out at 99.1 miles per hour before steadily dropping to 98. He had managed five strikeouts in his six innings when manager Dave Roberts replaced him with Jack Dreyer, though the three earned runs couldn’t be ignored.
But Roberts also acknowledged the possibility that the pitcher had been tipping his pitches, possibly since he was playing in Japan, and Sasaki has tried to address it after a three-inning, six-run start last week. Even if he had fully self-corrected, his control issues remain. In the third inning, he walked the tying runner, Brett Sullivan.
“I’ve been working on a lot of things like the tipping stuff,” Sasaki said through interpreter Kensuke Okubo. “Also, I need to make quality pitches.”
Sasaki regained some of his confidence in the fourth when he worked out of a two-base jam with two strikeouts and a flyball to right, something that didn’t go unnoticed by Roberts.
“You can see the demeanor walking off the mound, the confidence,” Roberts said. “For me, it was more of let him end on a high note, feeling good about his outing, and then go from there.”
The Dodgers’ problems were compounded by Alex Call wasting the team’s two challenges in his at-bat in the first inning when the team had already taken the lead. And maybe it would’ve been excusable if Call had driven in the runners on first and second, but instead he ended the inning on a strikeout, stranding both. Roberts called the situation an “outlier” and didn’t feel as though he needed to have a conversation with Call regarding the situation.
After the three-run first, the Dodgers (61-33) remained hitless until Max Muncy laced a double down the right-field line in the sixth, though to little avail. As the innings ticked forward, Colorado’s chances seemed to increase. The Rockies hold the best league batting average (.297) in the eighth and ninth innings (the Dodgers are fourth with .268). And the Dodgers relievers, within the same constraints, have a 3.83 ERA — not bad, but not in the top 10 either.
Third baseman Max Muncy can’t get his glove on a line-drive double by Kyle Karros in the fourth inning.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
So when Alex Vesia struggled against the Rockies in the eighth inning and Muncy suffered a throwing error, Colorado seemed in position to score with the bases loaded and one out. Vesia struck out TJ Rumfield and Edgardo Henriquez (4-0), his replacement, retired Karros on a fly ball to right.
After Betts’ single allowed the Dodgers to take the lead, Tanner Scott (13) shut down the Rockies with back-to-back strikeouts, avoiding the team’s eighth series loss of the season.
“Didn’t feel great,” Roberts said. “Fortunately, we won a series, but that’s not the kind of way you want to do it.”
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