Sawtelle's Stableford Ends L.A. Westside's 50-Year Drought On New Golf Clubs

A private club promising eight golf simulator bays, cold-plunge tubs and a members-only cocktail menu is under construction at 2055 S. Barrington Ave in Sawtelle, and organizers say it marks the first new private golf club to open on Los Angeles's Westside in more than 50 years. Stableford, a private indoor golf and wellness club developed by Sanjay Mattela and Drake Walker, is slated to open its 13,000-square-foot flagship clubhouse in West Los Angeles in late 2026.

The claim about the decades-long gap isn't just marketing spin. As reported by the Santa Monica Daily Press, the last full-scale private golf course built on the Westside was MountainGate Country Club in Brentwood, which opened back in the 1970s, according to Go Private Golf. Prohibitive land costs, dense development and municipal regulations have effectively blocked new traditional golf course construction in the area ever since. Stableford's chief executive, Sanjay Mattela, said building a traditional private golf club on the Westside today would be incredibly difficult, per the same account from the Santa Monica Daily Press.

Eight Simulator Bays and a Wellness Wing Instead of Fairways

Instead of grass, Stableford is built around eight Trackman simulator lounges and an indoor putting green powered by PuttView technology, the outlet's report notes. The club also includes private wellness suites stocked with cold plunges, Finnish saunas and red-light therapy panels, plus massage tools, stretching bands and yoga gear for members looking to recover between rounds.

Food and drink are part of the pitch too. The club plans a morning espresso and smoothie bar alongside a menu of poke bowls, sushi, grain bowls, wraps and sandwiches, and it will roll out an evening cocktail program developed by a principal bartender from Employees Only. The building itself, a 13,000-square-foot former office space, is owned by Beverly Hills-based NSB Associates and previously housed visual effects studio Pixomondo, according to the Commercial Observer.

New York-based design firm Mazzarini & Co. created the interiors, which lean on wood paneling and marble tables to set Stableford apart from typical golf simulator bars, according to Hospitality Design. Los Angeles City Planning approved a conditional use permit in December 2025 allowing on-site full-line alcohol sales across 71 indoor seats, with weekend hours running until midnight; the application was filed by Walker and represented by urban planning firm Three6ixty.

Membership by Invitation, With a Waitlist of Its Own

Stableford is emphasizing exclusivity rather than walk-in access. Membership is by invitation only, capped in the low hundreds, and the club will prioritize referrals from existing members while offering a limited number of founding memberships. Prospective members can submit interest through the club's website, and every application still goes through review by a membership committee.

General Manager Corey Bross previously worked at Bel-Air Country Club, and Director of Golf Lucas Wald has coached clients in entertainment, sports and business, according to the same Santa Monica Daily Press report. The club describes itself as fundamentally a private club, not a simulator business, one designed around practice, recovery, meals, drinks and events rather than tee times alone. Planned programming includes member events, golf leagues, game nights, culinary experiences, and destination trips to private clubs and resorts around the country.

That positioning matters because the traditional alternative on the Westside is brutally exclusive. Legacy clubs like Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades require member sponsorships and initiation fees estimated between $250,000 and $300,000, along with multi-year waiting lists, according to Golf Monthly. Stableford's backers argue Los Angeles has one of California's highest concentrations of golfers and ranks among the most undersupplied golf markets in the country, according to the company.

A Crowded Field, and a Political Backdrop

Stableford won't have the indoor-golf lane on the Westside to itself. Its Sawtelle location sits roughly four blocks from The City Golf's West L.A. facility, an established indoor practice center on West Olympic Boulevard that offers Foresight launch monitors and operates additional locations in Koreatown and Sherman Oaks, per the Commercial Observer's reporting.

The bet on indoor golf's staying power is backed by national numbers. Golf has boomed since COVID, and a November 2025 report from the National Golf Foundation found the number of commercial golf simulator venues nationwide grew to at least 1,500, nearly tripling from 2022 levels, with more than three-quarters of those businesses running structured membership models. In 2025, more than 19 million Americans participated exclusively in off-course golf activities like simulators and tech ranges, compared with 29.1 million who played on traditional courses, per the foundation's data. Industry estimates published in April 2026 by the Indoor Golf Alliance project the global golf simulator market to grow from $1.74 billion in 2024 to nearly $2.9 billion by 2030.

Stableford's arrival also lands amid growing political scrutiny of how the Westside's legacy country clubs use their land. In May 2026, Los Angeles City Councilmember Adrin Nazarian introduced a motion proposing a $4-per-square-foot annual parcel tax on large nonprofit private country clubs, a measure Hoodline previously reported could raise an estimated $250 million a year for city services by targeting property tax protections those clubs enjoy under Proposition 13, according to the Los Angeles Times. Whether a compact, invitation-only indoor club like Stableford would ever draw similar scrutiny as the format scales in dense L.A. neighborhoods remains an open question.

The club takes its name from golf's Stableford scoring system, a nod organizers say reflects the experience they're building around practice, recovery and community rather than a traditional 18 holes. For now, construction continues at the Barrington Avenue site, with the late-2026 opening positioning Stableford as the test case for whether Sawtelle's Westside neighbors will embrace a golf club that never touches grass.