Donald Trump and golf

Trump, according to Jack Nicklaus, "loves the game of golf more than he loves money". According to Golf Digest, his handicap is as low as 2.8, a figure that sportswriter Rick Reilly dismisses at length in his book Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump. In 1999, Trump opened his first golf course: the Trump International Golf Club, West Palm Beach in Florida. Land for the US$45 million course was acquired through a lawsuit against Palm Beach County, Florida, after Trump's purchase of the Mar-a-Lago resort. In July 2024, an hour-long YouTube video was released of Trump playing 18 holes with Bryson DeChambeau. Trump as cheater Trump's cheating at golf has been the subject of much commentary. Sportswriter Rick Reilly's book Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump details Trump's cheating at golf. Interviewed under oath in 2022 before a grand jury, Senator Lindsey Graham was asked if Trump cheats at golf, to which Graham replied: "Some people say you may outdrive him, but you’re not going to outdrive his caddy. It is what it is." Rick Reilly examined a lie Trump frequently tells: "Trump's boast about winning 18 club championships is a lie that's so over-the-top Crazytown it loses all credibility among golfers the second it's out of his mouth." Reilly cites Gary Player: "When Trump told Gary Player he'd won 18 championships, Player scoffed. 'I told him that if anyone beats him, he kicks them out. So, he had to win.'" He describes how Trump's name is only on the wall of golf clubs he owns, and in one case the club wasn't even open at the time he claimed to have won the championship there: "Trump International in West Palm Beach, Florida, has a plaque on the wall that lists all the men who've won the men's club championship. Trump appears three times: 1999, 2001, and 2009. But hold on. The course wasn't even open in 1999." Tom D'Angelo has examined Trump's long history of cheating at golf. One time, Mike Tirico "hit a 3-wood about 230 yards onto the green on one hole. When he arrived the ball was in a bunker about 50 feet from the pin. 'Tough break,' Trump said. Tirico later was told by Trump's caddie that his shot was about 10 feet from the hole and Trump threw it into the bunker. 'I watched him do it,' the caddie said." D'Angelo also quoted Reilly: Peter Wade described how Trump claimed he scored a 67 at his Bedminster course, which was eight strokes less than Phil Mickelson shot there two weeks earlier. Wade also wrote: ==Golf courses owned or managed by the Trump Organization==

in Rancho Palos Verdes, California As of December 2016, Trump owned golf courses in the United States and abroad. The Trump Organization also operates golf courses not owned by them. The following is a current list of courses owned and/or managed by The Trump Organization: • OM denotes courses for which The Trump Organization owns and manages • M denotes courses for which The Trump Organization manages only • DM denotes courses for which The Trump Organization developed and previously managed • F denotes future courses for which The Trump Organization will own and manage Puerto Rico In 2007, the Trump Organization took over the management and licensed Trump's name to the 4-year old, 36-hole oceanfront golf course at Coco Beach, Puerto Rico. It hosted the 2008 PGA Puerto Rico Open, but the club kept losing money and in 2015 filed for bankruptcy protection. The financial disclosures Trump filed with the Federal Election Commission in 2016 show that the Trump Organization manages the two golf courses in Dubai. The second Trump-branded golf course, the Trump World Golf Club, was designed by Tiger Woods and developed and built by DAMAC Properties, a company founded by Hussain Sajwani. It was scheduled to be opened in 2017, the year in which a report revealed that migrants working on the project were not being paid on time. == Ferry Point, New York ==

From 2015 to 2023, the Trump Organization operated the Trump Links at Ferry Point, New York, a public golf course built and owned by New York City, under a 20-year contract awarded in 2013 by the administration of then-Mayor Bloomberg. Under the agreement, the city paid the course's utility and water bills while collecting no income for the first four years. In the first year of operation, ending in March 2016, the company had $8 million in gross receipts, and the city paid $1 million in water and sewage bills. For the operating year that ended March 2019, the Trump Organization reported a loss of $122,000; it now faces contractual fees of at least $300,000 per operating year from the city. On January 13, 2021, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city government would be terminating all contracts with the Trump Organization effective November 14, 2021, for "directly incit[ing] a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol." The city of New York also stated that the Trump Organization had defaulted in its contractual obligations because it had failed to attract a major tournament. In June 2021, the Trump Organization sued the city for wrongful termination of the contract. The court allowed the Trump Organization to continue operating the golf course while the case was pending. In April 2022, the judge ruled that "the city had not given a valid legal reason for ending the contract." In September 2023, the Trump Organization sold the operating rights to gaming and entertainment company Bally's Corporation for $60 million. The course was renamed "Bally Links" in January 2024. ==Coats of arms==

Trump has used a number of logos in the style of coats of arms for his businesses. Joseph E. Davies, third husband of Marjorie Merriweather Post and a former U.S. ambassador of Welsh origins, was granted a coat of arms, bearing the motto Integritas, by British heraldic authorities in 1939. After Donald Trump purchased Mar-a-Lago, the Florida estate built by Merriweather Post, in 1985, the Trump Organization started using Davies's coat of arms at Trump golf courses and estates across the country. It was also registered with the U.S. patent and trademark office. In 2008, Trump attempted to establish the American logo at his new Trump International Golf Links in Balmedie, Scotland, but was warned by the Lord Lyon King of Arms, the highest authority for Scottish heraldry, that an act of the Scottish Parliament from 1672 disallows people using unregistered arms. In January 2012, shortly after the inauguration of the golf course, Trump unveiled the new coat of arms that had been granted to The Trump International Golf Course Scotland Ltd by the Court of the Lord Lyon, Scotland's heraldic authority, in 2012. From 2014, Trump used the same logo for the Trump International Golf Links, Ireland, the golf resort built from his acquisition of Doonbeg Golf Club. ==First presidency==

Following his election in 2016, Trump announced that he would not divest his business holdings, as other recent presidents had. Instead, Trump kept his ownership stake in the Trump Organization and appointed his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump to manage the business. As president, the amount of time he spent golfing generated controversy. Despite having frequently criticized his predecessor Barack Obama for having played golf too much as president, Trump golfed 11 times during his first eight weeks in office, when Obama did not golf at all in his first eight weeks. Golf Digest concluded that Obama played 333 rounds of golf over his two terms, which Golf Digest describes as "...a fairly remarkable amount of golf while in office". According to CNN, Trump visited Trump-owned golf courses 92 times between becoming president in January 2017 and January 3, 2018, although the White House did not disclose whether he played golf during a visit to a golf course. Journalists and ethics experts have alleged that these frequent visits are a means of boosting publicity at the courses to sell more memberships. == 2024 presidential campaign ==

At the presidential debate between Trump and Joe Biden on June 27, 2024, the candidates had a brief open-mic exchange about their golfing abilities. On September 15, 2024, during a tour of his course in West Palm Beach, Trump's security detail spotted an armed man, Ryan Wesley Routh, behind a fence. The incident is considered to have been the second attempt to assassinate Trump in 2024. Security opened fire on Routh, and he fled in a vehicle; he was later captured.{{cite news == Second presidency ==

Trump began his second term on January 20, 2025. He visited his golf clubs 88 times in 2025, amounting to roughly 25 percent of the days during the first year of his second term. By July, his expenses for taxpayer-funded golf in his second term had reached $52 million. By the end of October, a month into the government shutdown, the total had exceeded $60 million, and by Thanksgiving, it exceeded $70 million. By the end of March 2026, it exceeded $100 million. Those numbers are from HuffPost analyses. The Trump Golf Tracker estimated higher numbers, with taxpayer costs over $110 million by the end of 2025. On January 2, 2026, it was reported that Trump planned to renovate the Courses at Andrews, known as the "president’s golf course", at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, about 15 miles from the White House. There was no prior government record of him having played the course, though he had visited the base. ==See also==