When California's wildfires swept through Altadena in January, former golf pro and current commercial real estate broker Conner Boyd found himself dragging flaming golf carts from a collapsing barn to keep his home course — and a piece of his past — from going up in smoke.
That personal mission turned into something bigger. Months later, Boyd cohosted a charity golf tournament that raised nearly $45,000 for Door of Hope, a nonprofit that provides housing support for families affected by the fires.
“I’ve played that course since I was a kid,” Boyd told CoStar News. “It felt personal. I couldn’t just watch it burn — I had to do something.”
Boyd, now a broker with Cresa in Los Angeles, used his contacts across the real estate industry to pull together 120 participants in 45 days for the golf tournament. Brokers, architects, contractors and vendors all teed off at the match this spring, eager to give back to a community where 6,000 properties were damaged or lost when the Eaton fire hit Altadena.
Door of Hope said the $45,000 netted will help support about 150 displaced families with temporary housing and recovery assistance.
“Sentiment fades fast,” Boyd said. “We knew we had a small window to make a big difference.”
Cart connection
The Eaton wildfire that tore through the Altadena region of Los Angeles in January destroyed 5,600 single-family houses, 261 multifamily units, 161,000 square feet of retail space and 38,000 square feet of offices, displacing thousands of residents, according to officials and CoStar research.
Boyd played early on at the Altadena Golf Course, one of those destroyed structures, with his father. There he learned what he calls the game’s life lessons long before turning pro: resilience, independence and the ability to bounce back from a quadruple bogey.
“It’s where juniors learn to play, where families come together," Boyd said. "Losing it would’ve been like losing a part of our community’s identity.”
When the fires broke out, Boyd raced to his parents’ Altadena home. Though the house survived, smoke damage forced his parents to relocate.
Doing what he could during the fires, Boyd retrieved roughly two dozen carts by manually disabling the brakes and rolling them downhill. When it was over, the cart barn and clubhouse had burned to the ground. Months later, the course remains closed as it serves as a cleanup site for hazardous debris.
Boyd and Avo Amirian, CEO of Glendale, California-based information tech firm Pinnacle Communications Services, teamed up with Door of Hope after learning about the nonprofit’s mission to help families facing homelessness, including those displaced by the Altadena fire. The group called their planned golf tournament fundraiser LA Strong.
Boyd has been in the commercial real estate industry for only a couple of years. "The turnout showed me just how powerful this network can be when we rally around something that matters,” he said.
Boyd, who also runs an Instagram account called The Tall Golfer, sees the sport as a business tool as he navigates his career representing commercial tenants throughout the Los Angeles area with a particular focus on the San Fernando Valley.
“Golf is probably the best networking tool I could ever have,” he said. “It kind of feels surreal — going from working in golf to using it to build a career in brokerage. It’s definitely a full-circle moment in my life.”
Weeks after the fire, Boyd spotted a familiar sight while teeing off at Eaton Canyon, a sister course to Altadena: Some of the carts he had rescued were in use.
“Being able to save whatever I could of that golf course and then actually ride in those golf carts maybe a month later — it just felt right,” he said.