Trump Golf

Commander in Cheat

How Golf explains Trump

Rick Reilly has written this most entertaining book. It’s obstensively about golf. It’s really about politics and Donald Trump.

His thesis is clear: if you cheat at golf you are just a cheat. And the President is a monumental cheater on the golf course.

Most golfers realise that if you take the odd Mulligan along the way it’s not a criminal offence and even your playing partners will not get too upset. All recreational golfers have played with people who simply cannot count their own strokes for toffee. Are they “cheating”? Probably not, they just can’t remember or have a brain-fade. In a competition at your local club these members are well-known and soon find it difficult to find anyone to play with. Problem solved.

Donald Trump is something altogether different.

Rick tell us that at Winged Foot, where Trump is a member, the caddies saw him kick the ball back onto the fairway so often that they took to calling him Pele (the aristocratic Brazilian soccer star).

Trump always tees-off first. (The etiquette is that a coin toss decides the tee order at the first hole and thereafter the winner of the previous hole gains the “honour” at the next hole). If Trump hooks it, he just puts down another ball and counts that as one. He then hops into his cart, tuned to be twice as fast as all the other carts on the course, so he can get off down the fairway and be first to his ball.

Balls hit into the woods or a bunker or in the water appear miraculously on the green (Caddies and Secret Service agents frequently collude to ensure his ball is in the right place).

One player (nameless in this article) even claims he saw Trump play in “invisible” shot. I saw him make a chipping motion from the side of a hill but no ball came up. Then he walked up the hill, stuck his hand in the hole and pulled the ball out. There must have been a ball in his hand the whole time . . . I mean who does that?

Then there is the “Trump Bump” He may shoot a sketchy 77 at noon. On the ride home his score will be a 75, by dinner 72.

According to Trump he has won 18 club championships. This is like an NFL QB winning 18 Super Bowls. On the official rating site where ethics dictates that you post all your scores, Trump has posted just 20 times in 7 years. The result is an astonishing 2.8 handicap. Jack Nicklaus is currently a 3.4.

Trump breaks the cardinal rules of golf. He drives his super-charged cart on to the greens. He doesn’t take off his cap at the end of the round.

The truth is the person in golf Donald Trump cheats the most is himself.

Does any – or all of this matter?

Don’t forget we have had some fairly dodgy individuals inhabit the White House. Forgetting Tricky Dick, Kennedy was a sex-pest and addict, Eisenhower and Roosevelt probably had mistresses. Harding used to hide in a broom cupboard to carry on illicit sex. The list is long and not very edifying.

If Trump chats at golf but is doing a good job, will anyone really care?

We’ll see.