The catalog of Donald Trump’s self-absorbed and lawless misconduct is so expansive that it’s surprising his plans for East Potomac Golf Linkseven cracked the crowded news cycle of war, soaring gas prices, rising inflation, rampant corruption and servile Putin-fluffing
. But this latest grubby escapade is particularly revealing of the president’s view of golf (narrow) and of his own powers (decidedly not so).East Potomac is a municipal facility in Washington, D.C. that houses one 18-hole course, two 9-holers and mini-golf, alongside popular walking and biking trails, all of which are public. In a Sunday social media post, Trump described the course as “old, broken, dilapidated and of no further use.” (Write thyself, joke!) One almost expected
him to accuse Joe Biden of having designed it. He announced an immediate start to his plan to bulldoze everything and build one 18-hole course with a clubhouse, parking and a large practice facility.
It’s a course for which there’s dubious need and little desire, and the scheme was met with widespread anger. A coalition of preservationist groups and individuals sued to prevent work from going ahead, but in recent days Trump ignored a federal judge’s order and felled hundreds of trees on the site, forcing his lackeys at the Department of the Interior into court on Monday to cobble together excuses for the administration’s blatant disregard for yet another statute.
There are no surprises in this episode for anyone who consumes media that either covers golf or exists outside the MAGA echo chamber. Trump is on record as saying golf needs to be elitist, and he exhibits the attitude of a real estate developer who thinks new and shiny is unquestionably better — a mindset at odds with most golf fans, who recognize value beyond price tags, in things like history and public accessibility.
It’s yet one more entry in a bulging book of evidence that Trump considers public land his property to repurpose at will, government assets to be his personal slush fund, and the law as existing only to be weaponized against his opponents. Nor is it shocking that building a golf course should be a priority — like the ballroom, helicopter pad and reflecting pool — since Narcissus displays a blithe indifference to the kitchen table issues impacting voters and even the electoral prospects of his own party.
It’s cold comfort to quip that at least Trump’s golf focus prevents him from wreaking havoc in more important areas since he demonstrates an extraordinary ability to multi-task when it comes to screwing things up. But don’t expect to hear golf’s establishment speak out against his latest vanity project, even those fond of virtue-signaling about responsible stewardship of public courses and maintaining affordable access to the game. Certainly not the man Trump says will design his new course, Tom Fazio, whose output over decades has been defined not by its occasional highlights but by its dependable, manicured banality in service of selling home lots.
The president explicitly said this new course could host the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship, the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup. The next available date on the U.S. Open schedule falls one week after Trump’s 97th birthday, in 2043. The next open slot for the PGA Championship is a decade off; the Ryder Cup is assigned in the U.S. through 2039, while the Presidents Cup is next up for grabs in 2034, if it still exists. Trump’s folly, should it even be built, is highly unlikely to host any significant golf event, even less so during his lifetime.
None of the organizations that run professional golf will state that obvious reality in public for fear of upsetting a petty, vainglorious man. The PGA of America commendably stripped Trump of the ’22 PGA Championship after the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, but mutely watches its members in his employ forced to lie about the tournament-winning exploits of a cognitively and physically compromised octogenarian, caked in cheap bronzer, who manages scoring feats that Kim Jong-Il would have envied. The PGA Tour’s CEO, Brian Rolapp, has curried favor too. Earlier this month, he wrote in support of Trump’s quixotic campaign to make Daylight Saving Time permanent year-round — a meaningless gesture, unless you want to signal to the mad king that you’re willing to bang a bullshit drum on his behalf.
East Potomac isn’t the hill golf’s leaders will die on. It’s not even one they consider worth fighting on.
Which leaves this battle to the comparatively powerless who’ve stood up to Trump’s elitist, lawless scheme — local residents, preservationists and public golf advocates. They are relying on the courts to enforce a proper process before any action is taken. Of course, they could just appeal to the one man whose wishes are always honored by the Trump administration. Anyone have a switchboard number for the Kremlin?
Eamon Lynch is a columnist for Golfweek and a frequent contributor to Golf Channel.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Donald Trump’s plans for a public golf course expose how little he cares about the public or golf | Opinion
