Tag Archives: los angeles

Let’s Ask an LPGA Golfer

I’m primarily a runner and the thing that impresses me most about running is all the adult athletes I see around me. Sure you have the kids who ran in college, but I’m always impressed by the people who discovered professional sports later in life. One such person is my friend Caiti Klassovity. When Caiti told me she was leaving the film industry behind to pursue a professional golf career, I had no idea what that meant. I was happy for her, but didn’t understand what obstacles she had to conquer to do that. So, we went to dinner on weeknight in Los Feliz, caught up, and I asked the hard-hitting questions about life as a nearly professional athlete.

Liz: How did you discover golf? Why did you decide this was something that could be your career?

Caiti: Golf was the furthest thing from my mind, but one weekend my now-ex was out of town and I thought, “Hey, there is that par 3 down the street.” So I went and I did it and was addicted. I literally woke up at 6 am every day from there on out, up to today, to go play and practice this sport. It hit me like… whatever hits you and wakes you up.

What’s a typical day? What do you do to train for golf from an athletic perspective? Because all I know is that it’s a lot of walking

Yeah, it takes four and a half hours to play eighteen holes (laughs). I give about an hour a day to working out, which consists of running, core work (where all your power comes from), arms, and I guess your thighs, really. Beyond that I’ll go to the course in the morning for three to six hours, averaging five hours. If I have a lesson, I’ll have my lesson and play afterwards. If I don’t, I’ll warm up for about an hour, then go play for four hours. And then I have to go nanny after all that.

Can’t forget about that day job. How do most people get involved with golf?

Most people are born and bred for it. I obviously started super late. My brother was the golfer, he went to college on a scholarship, and he is pro level now. He shoots under par regularly; he’s like 69, which is crazy good. We grew up on a course so I was around it, but I played basketball, tennis and softball. I think most people start around ten or eleven, and go on scholarship for college. If they excel, they will get their pro card.

For the LPGA, you do what’s called Q school, and it’s a series of two tournaments. You have to qualify and make the cut for the first tourney, then the second. Only then will you have pro status. On top of that, you have to maintain it for that season so you have to hit certain scores in the tournaments you are in. There are not very many people with pro cards, maybe 200 women.

It is, of course, insanely hard to maintain that level of competition—to keep playing tournaments like that. But there are also less women that do that, compared to the PGA. It’s insane. Every young guy you see at the course wants to be on the tour and it’s not very likely it’s going to happen.

I’m older, in general, but that’s the great thing about golf. There are women who have been on the tour for twenty years who are still in the top five and then you have Lydia Ko who is 16. It’s a huge range: you can get into it at any age.

Do you feel like golf is more prevalent in certain parts of the country?

The hubs for golf are Southern California, Florida and Arizona—those are the biggest spots. But also there is a lot of golf where I grew up in the Northeast. Even though we have strong prevalent seasons, it’s very huge into golf culturally. I guess that makes it a coastal thing. But year-round warm weather helps: anywhere where you don’t have to spend part of the year inside.

What do you think your biggest challenge is right now (as a golfer)?

The biggest thing I lack is experience—playing competitively or just playing a lot at all. I have a membership now so I can play every day, but you have to develop a different persona to turn on during competition time. Even swinging in front of people and playing with people is different than when you just go out there by yourself.

For me, it’s about finding a good base of my game, which I have a good grasp of now. I have been working with my coach now for almost a year, so that is coming together. It’s the skeleton of my game. But I think getting into competition mode and performing at that level consistently will be my biggest challenge.

Can you explain where you are going? Why you are leaving LA?

I am leaving LA to move to Savannah, Georgia, in July. In LA, I have a great core group here in the golf world, including my coach—who coaches me for free simply because of our shared passion. But I have an opportunity where I can have golf and housing paid for by a sponsor that I can’t recreate here. I would like to not worry about rent, not worry about a job. So I’m going to take the opportunity to just quiet down and focus on this.

I wish I could remember the exact quote, but it’s like “you have to spend a little time creating the life you want now so you don’t spend all of your time living a life you don’t want later.” That is exactly what I’m doing. I’m not giving up time—I’m working towards what I want my future to look like.

How did you form your community out here?

Alicia is one of my best golf girlfriends here, actually my only one. The scene is completely male-dominated. When I first decided I wanted to play, I literally searched all the pros around my area and emailed them what I wanted to do. Asking for advice and positions. My now-coach Ben Krug answered and said let’s meet. Eventually I became a member of the club there and it’s a community once you are a member of a club.

Age wise, walk-of-life-wise—golf is an old white man’s sport. Let’s face it—Ben is 35, Alicia is 33. We’re all there because we love the game. But everyone can see themselves in golf one way or another other, playing or working in it.

I remember back in the day when you first started this, you were talking to a friend about women’s golf apparel and how it drove you nuts that all you could find was pink.

That has not changed. I was just talking to my friend about that and she wants to do a whole line and stuff.

Are you going to help with that?

I would. I would do that side of things. First I’m going to see where I can get my game and where I can compete. I will compete first, but as another avenue, absolutely. We want different styles, patterns, fabrics, and not pink, but we also want something that’s not $80 for a shirt. It’s super expensive.

The women golfer numbers are lower than before just because it’s expensive. At my course. it costs $90 to play a round of golf.

Speaking of all those costs, what generally are the startup costs of golf: like if I want to go out and play, what do I need? How much do you spend a week on golf?

Membership at my club is about $4200 a year, and they worked with me to make a payment plan when I started.

Just starting with golf, you don’t need the best clubs. Look for slightly used clubs—but even at Play It Again Sports, that will be $400. A jazzy new outfit will be $150 for gloves, shoes, and the rest. A lot of the courses for LA Parks are great and they are only $30; when you play twilight, you can even play some courses for $12.

If you want to get serious, you need to start to take lessons. It is a sport that you absolutely cannot teach yourself. Your natural habits in golf are going to be the opposite of what you should be doing. That’s why it’s a tireless game. You have to have the mentality and the physicality and spirituality—all cylinders have to be firing.

You’ll have the weekend warriors, guys who go play on the weekends and hit the ball around. I think it’s hilarious when people take golf up in retirement, because it’s one of the most stressful things! You have to be persistent and you have to practice. Most people go straight to the range, but you have to have a short game. You have to go to the putting green or else you’re not going to score. But that’s what people who are just beginning don’t know. They just go out and play and they are like, “Why can’t I hit the ball? Why is it going left? Why is it going right?” They try to self-correct and it doesn’t work… at all.

What would you say is the most fun part of the game? Is it the people, or a specific moment?

The most fun part is finding that sort of release where you relinquish control within the game but also within your life. It’s mind-altering and life-changing. If you go for a round, a four-hour round, and I’m playing with you, I will see every emotion I’ll ever have. It’s a picture of character really. The fun part for me is trying to maintain this game and realizing, every time, you are going to have shitty shots. You are going to mess up more than succeed but every hole is different. You always have another chance. You always have another round. You can be in a sand trap and only have one shot left and you can hole it. Or you can putt it in. You can always save yourself.

So figuring that out and being able to read the green—I love it. It’s always challenging, but it always brings you back because once you make that putt or nail that drive, you’re addicted.

It’s never repetitive and it never gets boring and I can see a future in it.

Is there always something to do? When I see golf it’s the most boring sport, but on the other hand I guess some people say running is boring too!

Take softball for example. If you go to a softball game, it’s a slow sport. I could be bored watching that, but the spectators aren’t thinking strategy like you are. They aren’t thinking, “Okay, if she hits it here, I’m going to throw it here. If she does this, I’m going to do that.” You know the mental aspect of the game and you are thinking ahead. With golf, it’s the same. You can have weekend warrior level where people just hit a ball, walk to it, hit a ball.

When you graduate to a higher level, you are using course management. You are able to control your ball flight, you are able to use a different swing for a different shot,  get this distance out of this club, put the ball here.

It’s hard and amazing. I can understand it seems boring, I thought it was boring for twenty-six years, but you know the diehard fans realize that these people are rock stars. She’s not alive anymore but Babe Zaharias is a legend. She was like back in the day during the founding the LPGA, but she was crazy good at everything: Javelin, golf, competitive sewer. And then today, I really admire Azahara Munoz. She’s from Spain. I saw her play a couple weekends ago at the Kraft-Nabisco tournament. I like the way she composes herself, and her swing is beautiful. She’s always on the cusp of greatness: she’s in the top five of every tourney but waiting to bust onto the scene. I like her style.

Final thoughts?

Play golf. Women reading, please play golf.

Liz Bohinc is a staff writer. Compassionate Human Being. Runner. Reader. Science Fact and Science Fiction Enthusiast. Softball Addict. Animation Connoisseur. Twitter: @littlelyme.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

How I Made a Strange City Feel Like Home

Something magical has happened in the engineering of the UNDERenlightened’s publishing schedule, something insane and cosmic that I didn’t plan: today marks exactly three years since I pulled myself up by my New York bootstraps and hauled over to Los Angeles. Today, I’m three years older, still on the West (best?) coast, and treating myself to flashbacks from that bizarre, uncomfortable first month where I was waking up three hours too early every morning, basking in the awe of a trip to the beach on a Monday, and cursing myself for thinking that Southern California would not require a jacket or scarf in February. There was also the slow-leaking air mattress I slept on before my IKEA furniture got delivered (a whole week late!), the janky space heater in my 330 square foot studio apartment, and the psychotic notion of making left-hand turns on yellow-almost-red lights at major intersections (GO HOME, LA. YOU’RE DRUNK).

But I figured it out. I made it my home, slowly but surely. Moving by yourself to a brand new city is as petrifying as it is exhilarating, and every person who does it has a different way of dealing with all the changes.  Here are a few things I did to keep myself from hyperventilating and asking “Oh dear Lord, what have I done with my life?” every hour of every day those first few months.

Reassure yourself that this doesn’t have to be permanent if you don’t want it to be.

I was all about taking it one day at a time when I first arrived. I was very emotionally attached to New York and my BFFs from college who still lived there, as well as my entire family—parents, brother, grandma, cousins… everyone.. I treated the first six weeks in LA as an adventure, an extended vacation—one that I could end and return home from whenever I had had enough. But the interesting thing about this frame of mind is that it actually had the adverse effect. The longer I took it “one day at a time,” the longer I wanted to stay.

Have coffee/drinks/lunch/any excuse for food and beverages with new people, wherever you can find them.

I had a handful of great friends out in LA when I first moved here, for whom I will always be eternally grateful. I also had a network of acquaintances from college and work who lived out here, and I knew that unless I wanted to spend every day of my new West coast life eating soy nuggets on an overturned cardboard box sitting on my leaky air mattress watching Netflix, I would need to meet some damn people . So I emailed and Facebooked everyone I knew who was settled in LA and did some serious hanging out. I tend to suffer from self-inflicted Hermitation, so forcing myself to go out to bars with near-strangers to shoot the shit was a little bit terrifying for me at first. But considering that the alternative was complete and total isolation in my teensy studio apartment, it wasn’t a hard sell.

Sidebar: If I had it to do over again, I would have had roommates at first! Two good friends of mine lived right next door, thankfully; but having people around 24/7 (who know other people who you can someday know) can be really valuable!

Go on dates.

I was blissfully single and free as a bird when I moved, so I figured hey, what better way go out and see all the sights than go on some dates? After all, I had my “one day at a time” hat on, so how bad could it be, as long as nothing got too serious? There’s nothing a native (or long-time dweller) of a given city loves more than showing a bright-eyed new kid how cool their town is. I signed up for an OkCupid account for the first time ever—I think my photo caption said something like “Just passin’ through!” But as it turns out, my one-day-at-a-time approach also kind of failed me in this department, too. I met a guy through some mutual college friends, and pretty soon my “I’m on vacation here, I don’t really live here, all my relationships are transient!” mentality dissolved to “Maybe I’ll stick around for a little while.”

Plug shit into your GPS and GO—even if you have nobody to go with.

The first thing I said after buying my car in LA was something like: “Siri, take me to Malibu!” I followed the directions on my GPS and drove up the Pacific Coast Highway to Zuma Beach. I drove home with the backdrop of a classic dusty-pink LA sunset in my rearview, and even though the traffic was brutal, I was psyched to have taken myself on an adventure. I didn’t start my first job in LA until I’d been there for a month, so daytime was my playtime. While most of my new friends were at work, I took it upon myself to explore a new neighborhood every day. I hiked Runyon Canyon. I shopped at The Grove. I explored Santa Monica Pier. I went thrift shopping in Silverlake. I tried (and failed) to get my tiny dog to walk all the way up to the Griffith Park Observatory. And, of course, I hit all of the beaches and Farmers Markets (and don’t even get me started on the wonder that is locally sourced California produce. I SAID GOD DAMN). With the GPS on my side, I wasn’t afraid of getting lost or accidentally wandering into a seedy neighborhood. I got up every morning and I went somewhere. That was how I learned to love LA, I think. Every experience was mine and mine alone, because I was flying so utterly solo. I don’t associate places in this city with certain people or events, the way I often did in New York. The places were all mine, because I discovered them all by myself.

Today, I’m happy to report that I no longer eat Trader Joe’s chik’n nuggets on an overturned cardboard box and my apartment is no longer 330 square feet. I have friends, both new and old, I have managed to find fulfilling work, and even though I still pine for NYC every now and then (especially during the holidays!), the life I’ve created out here is so distinctly mine that even if I move away someday, it will not be for good. It’s so rewarding when you can create a new home on your own terms. As we age, we get fewer and fewer opportunities to do that.  So if you have a chance, I say go for it, enjoy it, and take it one day a time!

Friends in Readerland, tell us about the ways that you made a strange city feel like home in the comments!

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

I Put a Ring on It in a City of Single Ladies

I moved to Los Angeles about four years ago. In all that time, LA has proved to be a lot of things. Yes, there are a million blonde white girls who look exactly like me (and it seems like they snapped up all the agents already). Yes, there are images of fitness perfection everywhere and people really love the word “cleanse.” Yes, there’s no such thing as winter, to my great dismay. But most of all, people here care about their careers more than any other city I’ve lived in.

Granted, I haven’t lived very many places, and I have no reason to be surprised. Working in entertainment in LA takes a great deal of focus and drive. But I had no idea the level of scrutiny my own life choices would be subject to.

I had long ago decided that the LA lifestyle wasn’t something I would subscribe to completely. I moved down there with a grain of salt and an escape plan in mind. I wasn’t planning on scrabbling for infomercials or paying hundreds of dollars for “Agent-Meet Workshops”; really, my personal goals were to gain experience doing projects I was interested in and expanding my acting horizons. Because of this level of detachment, I hadn’t thought that the attitude of Los Angeles toward marriage would be any different than that of the rest of the country, where 20-something-year-old women are subject to the questions of their older counterparts: “Who are you dating? When will you settle down? When will you be married?” So, when I became engaged at 23 and set the wedding date for after I turned 25, I didn’t consider it unusual at all and was excited to wear a beautiful ring that would scream the happy news for me without me even having to open my mouth.

But man, the reactions I got! People acted as if I had decided to become a nun. Or join a cult. The ring on my finger became an instant magnet for attention, and not all of it was good.

Let me clarify: those who have known me for a while, and who know my fiancé, or are at least good enough friends with me that they feel as if they know him, didn’t have any comments to offer except “I’m so happy for you! It was only a matter of time!” Instead, it’s those who met me more recently, and who noticed the ring, who had less positive things to say. Things like, “Wait….you’re getting married? How old are you? Oh my god, you’re a baby! How do you even know what you want when you’re so young? What about your career? Do you want children right away? Wait…you don’t want to have children right away?!? Why get married so soon then? What about your career? Why are you settling down? What about your career? What’s the rush? For the love of GOD, what about your CAREER?!? THINK ABOUT YOUR CAREER, WOMAN!”

I was completely unprepared for this onslaught of questions. I got them from new coworkers, new acquaintances, and even had other comedians ask me these questions while I was working… a completely unsolicited barrage of opinions and judgment. I tried not to fall in the trap of explaining my life choices to a stranger, but the more I was exposed to it, the harder it got to not be defensive.

The fact was, I had never really thought about what a marriage would do to my career because I never felt the need to weigh “career vs. relationship.” I wasn’t planning on having children for at least five years. I wasn’t planning on being a stay-at-home wife. My fiancé is an encouraging and supportive partner. I had been in a relationship with this man for six years and was still able to pursue a career. Our relationship, and my love for him, has in no way been a detriment to that end. I’ll admit that if there was no one in my life, I would have been more engrossed in my job, but the situation I was in was what I had been looking for all along: a balance in my life, with love, passions, art, family, and career.

The thing that drove me over the edge was that other women were having the exact opposite problem that I was having. Women who were single, whether to concentrate on their jobs or simply because they hadn’t found the right person yet, were being examined and questioned for not doing the exact thing that I was about to do. Ladies just couldn’t win! I was also baffled that—given that there are so many different family structures and relationship choices in this modern age—there is anybody left to be surprised or seemingly personally offended by my somewhat conventional life choices.

Later, I discovered that one of my coworkers who questioned me so relentlessly was actually unsatisfied with her own relationship status. It made me realize that there’s usually more under the surface when people present their judgment, but I still don’t excuse those people. To me, if someone tells you about their relationship or family status, whether it’s “married with children,” “single mother/father,” “dating around (or sleeping around),” “gay,” “bi,” “straight,” or “polyamorous,” it is insufferably rude to respond with anything other than: “Oh, that’s cool.”

The plus side of all of this is that I have learned to gain some perspective on the whole concept of judgment. I realized that no matter what your choices, no matter how “normal” they might seem, someone somewhere is going to judge you for it. I’ve learned to not give a shit. I’ve resolved to become less judgmental myself. If someone goes on about something that someone else is doing and how “weird” it is, I just shrug my shoulders and say, “Well, if it works for them and it’s not hurting anybody…” Even if I’m uncomfortable with something, it doesn’t give me a pass to be a judgey little meanie about it.

Finally, this thought: Many people have many opinions and thoughts on marriage. I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience, but for me, marriage doesn’t mean a one-way ticket to Stepford wife-ness, nor is it the equivalent of a grave. It is not an excuse to stop growing and learning and exploring. The reason I cringe at the term “settling down” is because I never plan to, no matter what my relationship status. When my fiancé becomes my husband, we will both continue to be ever-changing and ever-expanding human beings. The beautiful part is that we choose to pursue that growth and learn those lessons with another person. My life and marriage will be, in the words of J.M. Barrie, “an awfully big adventure.”

Photo by Michelle White

Photo by Michelle White

Oh, the Places I’ve Been!

I have a severe case of unconsummated wanderlust.  I spend a lot of time on travel blogs, clicking my way through photos of other people’s vacations, and seething with jealousy as I tally up all the magical foreign moments I am not experiencing.  Like, I am not on this beach and I am not climbing this mountain and I am definitely not eating this amazing-looking cheese thing and I don’t know why.  And, yeah, that cheese would go great with this whine right here, but really I’m just saying that I go through days when I feel like the world is so very small.

But the places I have been to also have a tendency to become staple locations in my life.  There may be years between visits but, when I finally get there again, there are all sorts of old memories and emotions that come rushing back—shadows of the time I had spent on those streets and inside those buildings.

Vegas

…is a city that never changes.  New hotels may get whipped up on top of the bones of the old, but it’s the barest flicker in a winding wall of lights.  I would know—I’ve gone to Vegas with my family for every Christmas since I was four.  Up and down the strip that many times and you’d think I’d be fully aware of these large shifts in the steel landscape, but it’s not like that at all.  Only every once in a while do I even pause.  “Wasn’t something else here?”

Every time I see those Vegas lights, it’s an eye roll and a rueful laugh.  I remember coming to Vegas when we were still adjusting to life in America and Caesar’s Palace was the grandest thing we had ever seen.  We would marvel at the shops and the statues, posing for photos and feeling quite luxurious.  Looking back at photos, I can see it’s really just Vegas: tacky, tawdry, and covered in all sorts of razzle-dazzle that could vanish into a poof of smoke.  But it was a magical escape for our little family—so far from home, trying to make the best of it despite how hard we had to struggle.

Christmas 2013 was much of the same for me, even though I’ve obviously grown old enough to understand the wink that the entire city represents.  We’ve walked those casinos so many times at this point that I could rattle off the sights (and buffets) off the top of my head. And yet, it still feels like those early immigrant escapes.  It can be as simple as getting my mom drunk on a colorful Fat Tuesday drink, or watching my dad scurry away when a pair of, uh… working ladies tried to approach him. (This actually happened during Christmas 2013.  My mom watched the women go from a distance and very gleefully commented to me, “I think those were prostitutes!”)

The excitement reminds me of how lucky we’ve been, with each trip more luxurious than the last and light years away from our tight-budgeted first vacation.  We’ve come so far and I’m so proud of my parents for getting us here.  All the things that have changed since the early ‘90s—almost entirely inevitable developments like children growing up and parents aging in an empty nest—fall away in Vegas.  It’s still our family.

Hangzhou

…is a city that is always changing.  So much so that it basically disappears into its new identity every time I visit.  China transforms explosively between each of my trips—even a two-year gap can render my homeland almost unrecognizable.  Hangzhou isn’t as well-known to the Western world as, say, Shanghai or Beijing but it carries a certain amount of fame within China.  It’s a beautiful city; the translation of its name is “Heaven’s land” and, if you’ve walked along the shore of its famed West Lake, you could see why.  There’s a perpetual sense that the opposite bank is drifting away into the mist, an unknown world just a wooden boat ride away.  The water’s surface hides an ancient heartbeat of romance and longing but, as you move away from it and wander back to the main streets, Hangzhou is working hard to become a cosmopolitan center of a voraciously developing nation.

Of our direct family, only my parents, myself, and my sister live abroad.  Everyone else remains in China and they contribute acutely to my sense of how time just slips away.  I’m Rip Van Winkle every time I get out of the cab in that city.  Entire blocks have been rebuilt and family members—ones with whom I last remember running around the garden trying to dig up centipedes—definitely not something you should let your kids do, by the way—are shy strangers.  I have an aunt whom I remembered as a strict matriarch when I was little but, in a flash of years, suddenly became a confidante with whom I can greedily gossip over afternoon tea and snacks.  I have a cousin whom I remembered as the Batman to my Nightwing (I was never Batgirl) when it came to crime-fighting / pantsing the neighbor boy for being a twerp and, in the same flash of years, suddenly became sullen and unapproachable.

It is hard to leave Hangzhou because I know I will never see it again.  Not this version, not in the same light, not with the same people.  It will have swum ahead to the opposite shore and I can only wonder what the mist will change.

Manhattan

…changes everything.  And for me, personally, that change will only happen once.  I lived there for four glorious years and, besides the dear friends who remained in the city for whom I happily make travel allowances, I have little interest in going back.  It’s an entity unlike any other and a place that will impose its personality on its residents, for better or worse.

I mostly remember the chaos.  We were art students and we knew everything and simultaneously knew absolute fuck-all.  High on our mostly worthless ideas, we feverishly dreamt those years away and blithely burned ourselves out on obsessive projects that any therapist could probably identify as some form of narcissism.  And, in my opinion, this was the best thing we could’ve ever done.  Those obsessions needed to be burnt and those stupid ideas needed to be blown out our asses so their true nature could be revealed.

Obviously, there are other people who thrive on Manhattan’s chaos and I think that’s great.  The point is, though, that Manhattan always has to be experienced at least once.  It lets you play for a while and you think you’re totally safe and anonymous in its teeming population, but really it’s pushing you toward an existential cliff.  And you can’t really be anonymous when your toes are curling over the edge—you kinda gotta know what you wanna do about it.

I accept that I am incredibly biased and if I had any sense of propriety, I wouldn’t be saying this but whatever.  When I woke up one day and realized I had no clue what I really wanted to do or how to actually do anything, I knew it was time to get out of Manhattan.  It was a wonderful, beautiful chance to wander around my own head, and the city gave me the chaos I needed to be okay with that until it finally pushed me to a point where I was not.  So I moved back to California, started working in LA, and feel confident that I have my shit together every single day.

Los Angeles

…is home—and the one place that I get to change.  Los Angeles can be whatever I need it to be for me.  It’s so very reassuringly mine.  So, I guess a lot of the wanderlust comes from a sudden urge to get lost in a world that reflects someone else’s vision.  And what’s wonderful about doing that is it always reminds me that I have my own.

 

Photo by Michelle White

Photo by Michelle White