Topgolf isn't your granddad's country club. With the bays filled with bachelorette parties, families and after-work crowds, the El Segundo facility resets how we experience the game.
For the uninitiated, the brand name Topgolf evokes a high-end performance center with video analysis, custom club fittings and serious male faces contemplating details like swing path and dynamic loft. Topgolf’s newest facility in El Segundo can be that, if you want it to. But like the company’s other 76 locations around the world, it mainly offers a freewheeling introduction to the game in which golf is the vehicle and good times are the destination.
Think of Topgolf as a high-end driving range moshed with a Cheesecake Factory; or Putt-Putt on steroid-laced edibles. The new spot in El Segundo, five minutes south of LAX, is the only Topgolf in the world with an actual golf course attached , but you’re more likely to see a novice grandma teeing off here than an aspiring pro in $300 stretchy slacks.
I suggest two goals for your visit: First, goof around in your bay, playing games, imbibing and swinging for the fences .the Lakes at El Segundomakes it sound. There aren’t any corny windmills to play through, but each hole is about 80-100 yards long , as if someone left a full-length PGA event in the dryer too long. There was a group in front of our threesome, and another party behind us , but we never felt rushed or stood around waiting.
finds your ears and the ball sails straight and true — well, it’s extremely gratifying. This dopamine surge alone will keep me coming back.Topgolf offers far better options than the doughy pizza and thawed chicken fingers offered at your local municipal course. The executive chef in El Segundo, a round, gray-whiskered Louisianan named Whitney Wilson, eagerly pointed out that his wings — the most popular item on the menu — are double-brined and marinated.