‘Free the Tee’ Redux: Fighting back against LA golf course scalpers
Imperfect Paradise
LAist Studios
4.5 • 535 Ratings
🗓️ 26 March 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode originally aired on June 12, 2024.
LA was rocked on March 4 when Dave Fink, a golf influencer, posted a viral video on Instagram detailing how brokers - largely using a Korean messenger app- were snatching up prime time tees at Los Angeles’ public golf courses and reselling them. Here’s how an unlikely crew of golf enthusiasts’ fight to keep golf in L.A. accessible and affordable is paying off. Host Antonia Cereijido reports.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Support for LAIST comes from CarPros Kia, featuring the 2027 Kia Telluride Hybrid with a striking new design and family-friendly seating for up to eight. |
| 0:09.5 | You can learn more at CarPros Kia in Glendale, Huntington Beach, and Moreno Valley. |
| 0:15.1 | LAISD is supported by Elephant Energy. |
| 0:17.7 | Elephant Energy is LA's expert in installing modern and efficient |
| 0:21.1 | heating and cooling systems, |
| 0:22.9 | the new standard for whisper quiet |
| 0:24.7 | comfort year round. They handle |
| 0:26.8 | the design and the rebates to save you thousands. |
| 0:29.3 | Claim your rebates at elephant |
| 0:30.6 | energy.com. |
| 0:31.7 | This is Imperfect Paradise, the show about |
| 0:34.4 | hidden worlds and messy realities. |
| 0:36.8 | I'm And Donia Seri Heidei, though. |
| 0:40.8 | When did you become the people's coach? |
| 0:43.1 | I've always been the people's coach. |
| 0:46.0 | Because I don't coach for money and I don't coach for clout. |
| 0:50.9 | I met Dave Fink on a recent Thursday morning at the Wilson and Harding public golf course in Los Felice, an affluent hipster neighborhood in a hilly part of Los Angeles. |
| 1:00.6 | Dave is white and has the haircut and cadence of the Big Lobowski's dude mixed with the motivational energy of DJ Khalid. |
| 1:08.4 | Sometimes you shoot your shot and you completely miss, |
| 1:11.7 | but that's how we learn. |
| 1:13.5 | That's kind of my mantra is simplify shit. |
| 1:16.8 | You can bleep that out, but that is what I say. |
... |
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