{"id":319922,"date":"2025-12-02T05:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T05:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/319922\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T05:56:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T05:56:07","slug":"american-friends-of-our-armed-forces-honors-marines-with-day-of-golf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/319922\/","title":{"rendered":"American Friends of our Armed Forces honors Marines with day of golf"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PALM DESERT, Calif. (KESQ) &#8211; The American Friends of our Armed Forces (AFAF) hosted its 17th Annual Military Appreciation Golf Tournament on Monday, honoring around 75 active-duty Marines from Twentynine Palms, Camp Pendleton, and Miramar.<\/p>\n<p>The Marine golfers represented more than 60,000 service members stationed across Southern California. Civilian and retired golfers joined them for a day of camaraderie, gratitude, and connection at Classic Club in Palm Desert.<\/p>\n<p>Participants enjoyed breakfast, 18 holes of golf, and a buffet luncheon that featured awards for top teams and special contests, including \u201cClosest to the Pin,\u201d \u201cLongest Drive,\u201d and \u201cStraightest Drive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>American Friends of our Armed Forces President Walt Van Benthuysen said of the event, &#8220;It&#8217;s a great satisfaction to meet these fine young men and women that are part of the Marine Corps and the Navy also that are here. And we just have a great time. We enjoy it and we look forward to every year. When this year is over, we&#8217;ll start thinking about next year.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>During the luncheon, retire Riverside County Sheriff&#8217;s Deputy Alicia Lopez, the mother of fallen Marine Corporal Hunter Lopez, addressed the Marines and guests. <\/p>\n<p>Organizers say the annual event reflects the deep appreciation of the Coachella Valley community for those who serve our nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PALM DESERT, Calif. (KESQ) &#8211; The American Friends of our Armed Forces (AFAF) hosted its 17th Annual Military&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-319922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}