The Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles had an unexpected visitor Friday.
Video posted to social media Friday afternoon shows a small aircraft made an emergency landing on the historic club’s golf course in Pacific Palisades. While the landing was bumpy, the plane and its occupants appeared to be unharmed.
This happened at Riv today. I pray I’m never this late for a tee time, but I do pray for the means to pull up this way if I was 😂 pic.twitter.com/00RzIdMrb8
— Roger Steele (@RogerSteeleJr) May 2, 2025
Per Golfweek, the plane was scheduled to land at Santa Monica Airport, a few miles southeast from Riviera. First responders from both the Los Angeles Fire Department and the Santa Monica Fire Department reportedly arrived on the scene soon after.
Golf course landings are not uncommon with planes that need to make emergency landings in urban areas, due to their open terrain and relative lack of people. One of the most famous instances of that was when actor Harrison Ford made a much rougher landing at Penmar Golf Course, right next to the same Santa Monica Airport.
Friday’s landing also wasn’t even the worst airplane mishap of the day in the L.A. area, as a different plane crashed into fencing after overshooting the runway at the Fullerton Airport.
Riviera Country Club is the annual site of the Tiger Woods Foundation’s Genesis Invitational and has hosted three majors with the 1948 U.S. Open, the 1983 PGA Championship and the 1995 PGA Championship, as well as the 2017 U.S. Amateur.
The club is set to be one of the most high-profile in the world over the next few years, as the golf site for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, as well as the 2031 U.S. Open and 2026 U.S. Women’s Open. Hopefully, planes won’t be an issue for those.
