LOS ANGELES, May 26 – A dentist was shot to death on the eighth hole of the Western Ave. Golf Course in Lennox Saturday during a robbery attempt by two young men with a rifle, police said.

The dentist, Gilbert D. Halm, 61, of Los Angeles, was golfing with his son, Howard Halm, 31, of Los Angeles, a state deputy attorney; Daye Shinn, 57, of Marina del Rey, an attorney in the Charles Manson trial, and Henry Halm, 40, of Los Angeles, a dental technician and the dentist’s nephew, police said.

The would-be robbers demanded the golfers’ wallets but were told that nobody was carrying a wallet, police said.

They said the suspects walked about 60 feet, then turned toward the golfers and the one with the rifle fired, hitting Halm in the head. He died at the scene.

The suspects fled and threw the rifle into the brush, police said.