EVERY OTHER THURSDAY NIGHT at the Rancho Park GC driving range, something different and poignant is happening. Bringing together dozens, if not hundreds, of first-time golfers, SCGA member and marketing/music industry veteran Modi Oyewole’s ball bang and range hang have become a social and swing L.A. nexus. Founded in August 2023, the Swang golf collective has evolved from a pals’ range hang into what may well be a definitive answer for golf’s cultural and demographic voids.

A HISTORY OF COMPANY

Oyewole, still on the right side of 40, grew up in the Washington, D.C. area and displayed a talent for industriousness long before he ever placed tee to turf. As a kid (to the chagrin of his mom), he’d find things around the house to put in his Radio Flyer and sell to neighbors; come middle school, Oyewole’s assiduity evolved to selling pirated CDs.

“And it wasn’t really about making money,” Oyewole reflects. “I was that guy who needed to share it, spread it; I was like, ‘You need to see this; you need to hear this.’”

A career arc of creativity and creation ensued: Oyewole would go on to co-found the Trillectro Music Festival in D.C. before moving to Portland to work as a producer with Nike. A relocation to L.A. resulted in marketing gigs with Red Bull and Epic Records; most recently, he served as V.P. of Creative for Def Jam Recordings.

Come 2023, however, Oyewole found himself disenchanted with corporate culture.

“I worked hard to get to my position and was making good money, but nothing I was doing seemed to matter,” he continues. “It wasn’t cool; wasn’t pretty. I was just a cog in the machine.”

Like many golfers, Oyewole didn’t find the game; rather, the game found him. Right before quitting his job, an invitation to attend the Hypegolf Invitational in Santa Clarita found him playing hooky.

People are showing up for all these other things, and then quickly finding out that golf is awesome,” says Josh Hubberman, a partner in Swang. “This is a different context in discovering the sport.”

From the event’s hole sponsors to attire to music, a wide-eyed Oyewole experienced a new world of possibility. For a kid who grew up with Allen Iverson and hip-hop posters on his wall, Oyewole saw a golf canvas that met his cultural context.

“It was the first time I saw golf in a way that I could understand it,” he reflects. “Seeing this experience where people didn’t need to be great at golf to have fun, where people were wearing really fly outfits, where I saw peers that I had no idea were into golf. To me, the game as I saw it was always aligned with stodgy, country club culture. This was the first time where I thought that golf was meeting me where I’m at.”

That summer, a friend took Oyewole to the Maggie Hathaway GC in South L.A.

“It’s my first time ever playing an actual round,” he remembers. “The first thing I see is golfers of color; Black golfers, Black instructors, an entire culture and community — I never knew this existed. It gave me a whole new perspective.”

“From that moment,” he continues, “I was like, ‘I need to play more; I need to be around the game more.’”

Referring to his golf bug as an ‘accountability mechanism’ amid a soul-searching stage in life, a concept was born.

“Swang was an idea that I had in my head,” Oyewole says, “and in talking about it with a few friends, it was, ‘Yo, what if we could just make it easier to meet people where they’re at and connect golf to culture?’”

At Rancho Park’s two-tiered range, Swang’s inaugural “Free Range” event drew 15 people.

“I brought speakers, and my friends helped me take over hitting bays,” says Oyewole of the debut gathering. “Right away, people who showed up were saying, ‘I’ve never seen golf look like this; I’ve never seen this kind of diversity.’”

As the gatherings grew over time, Oyewole and his cohorts, bringing extra clubs and supplying free buckets of balls for all, developed what the founder calls a “usurping” of hitting bays. The strategy simply involved arriving early, kick-standing extra bags in range stalls and organically grabbing open bays, one-by-one, as throngs arrived into the night.

“I’m a hustler,” Oyewole says, “and I mean that in the traditional sense; it comes from all my years of hosting underground parties and starting events without much budget. You just figure it out.”

Now, two years on, organically fueled by a cornerstone of creatives and word-of-mouth, Swang’s social and swing gatherings regularly attract upward of 200 attendees; one August event saw the entire upper deck of Rancho’s driving range awash with guests, many of whom had never before swung a golf club.

THE THICK RED LINE

As if painted in metaphor, the red line upon Rancho’s range is there for safety, drawn to separate players from onlookers. At Swang, if even in silence, the line may denote much more.

It’s September 11, and lamps begin to light the dusking Rancho range as a melting pot of people arrive for Swang. White, Asian and Black, they come in pairs and groups and as singles; Millennials and Gen Z’s, men in styled Jordans, women dolled up. Attractive people; young professionals; good music; a genuine vibe and scene.

Many in attendance come for Swang but stay to swing. Wisely, Oyewole & Co. have assembled a cache of PGA teaching professionals and longtime players to assist the newcomers.

And while golf may seem like a byproduct of the social gathering — it becomes the nexus.

“People are showing up for all these other things, and then quickly finding out that golf is awesome,” says Josh Hubberman, a partner in Swang. “This is a different context in discovering the sport.”

A longtime golfer, Hubberman, akin to Oyewole, has eyed the game’s traditional contexts as walls rather than windows.

“Golf has never really been the problem,” says Hubberman, “the wrapping paper around it has. Los Angeles is known for being a ladder-climbing city, right? But the experience at Swang has been very much the opposite. People coming here aren’t trying to figure out where you work. They’re here because of the energy; and then, the joy of hitting the center of the clubface ends up being the reason they keep coming back.”

Echoing Hubberman, Justin McMullen, who works in the music industry for Sony and has been a Swang attendee since the beginning, notes that gatherings are free from L.A. ego.

“This is a place where people want to have fun, learn golf, build their game,” McMullen says. “Nobody comes to Swang with, ‘I work here,’ or ‘I have this many followers.’ Nobody is a star here; everyone is the star.”

“Modi is very good at fostering community,” says William VaJohn, a longtime friend and collaborator of Oyewole. “I think there’s always been this curiosity around the sport, and, with Swang, I know a lot of people who, previously, just didn’t feel comfortable playing or know anybody who played or just felt like an outcast around the game.”

Kailani Raye, a mindset coach, came to her first event this summer past.

“Now I’m invested,” smiles Raye. “I went out and bought clubs, and I’m out here practicing by myself at the range every week. This just introduced me to a new world. Now, I’m in it; I’m hooked; I’m a golfer.”

Raye sees Swang’s influence on crossing over the metaphorical red line.

“We’re in an area of the city that isn’t typical for this community, this demographic. But when I come here, it’s all kindness, from Swang and all the employees at Rancho Park,” she continues. “It makes me feel like I could have always been included; I just didn’t know that I was. This has been an opened door of accessibility, a gateway.”

“I love building community, curating. I’ve basically been doing that my whole life,” the founder concludes. “And Swang is the opportunity to do it in my own unique way by providing these new access points.”

The L.A. evening clicks toward 9 o’clock, and with his guests shouldering along the active stalls and buoyant walkway, Oyewole shows his talent for hosting: genial, accessible, inquisitive. As he talks about the random Swang pop-ins of all manner of entertainers and industry execs, rapper Smino arrives as if on cue to bang a few drivers.

With a community founded and firmed, next Swang steps look to build off a spring collaboration for the Rolling Loud hip-hop festival’s tournament at Angeles National GC, and a recent partner promotion for the premier of Happy Gilmore 2. Apparel, member events, group gatherings at The Genesis Invitational and a potential connection with L.A. City Golf Courses are all in process.

Working the range abuzz with handshakes and hugs, Oyewole’s sneakers, perhaps unbeknownst to him, toe the painted red range line. Soon, whether intentionally or instinctively, the line, like the bays adjacent, is usurped in full.

“I love building community, curating. I’ve basically been doing that my whole life,” the founder concludes. “And Swang is the opportunity to do it in my own unique way by providing these new access points.”