How Donald Trump is Making America Golf Again but a book titled ‘Commander in Cheat’ raises red flags | Golf News

Donald Trump is Making America Golf Again and the greens around the world are buzzing. Politicians are dusting off their clubs to bond with the golfer president-elect and the pros are desperate to play a round or two with him.The office of South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol recently confirmed that the premier has taken up golf. Yoon is said to be inspired the late Japan PM Shinzo Abe’s successful golf-diplomacy during Trump’s last presidential stint.
But it is the serious golfers who are seeking the urgent intervention of Trump, and his virtual running-mate Elon Musk. They want the two to end the long-standing stand-off that threatens to divide the global golfing landscape. Power and money – Trump and Musk – can strike a deal between the Professional Golf Association and the rebel breakaway Saudi-backed LIV Golf.
Among his many pre-election boasts, the man who prides himself on his negotiation skills had said that he could broker a deal between the PGA and LIV Golf in “15 minutes”. And within days of Trump’s re-entry into White House, world’s leading golfer Rory McIlroy sees hope. “He’s got Elon Musk, who I think is the smartest man in the world, beside him … Trump has a great relationship with Saudi Arabia. He’s got a great relationship with golf. He’s a lover of golf. So, maybe. Who knows?”
Trump certainly knows the Saudis, and also golf. They all go back a long way. The new LIV-Golf league, fuelled petro dollars, is a hostile bid to take over the game. Trump hosting the rebel league at three of his courses in the US is in the mix.
Within days of him reclaiming the Oval Office, Trump was playing the deal-maker – where else but at a golf course. “You get to know somebody better on a golf course than you will over lunch,” Trump once said.
So there he was teeing off with PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and was later seen watching a UFC fight with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the LIV Golf chairman and governor of Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF). Soon it would get reported that PIF was investing $1 billion on PGA Tour for an 11 per cent stake of the Tour with Yasir Al Rumayyan as chairman.
Deal done, official announcement could be any day now. And the world thought it was the Ukraine-Russia impasse that was on top of Trump’s mind.
But then for Trump, like most other US presidents, golf is the No.1 sport. George Bush Sr, a keen golfer himself, has a record of rebuking reporters in case they were harsh on his favourite players from Texas. The only thing Trump liked in Barack Obama was his golf-swing. As for Bill Clinton, he liked long-drawn rounds with golf writers. America also has a designated golf horian for all POTUS.
For Trump, the golf course is his home, actually. His long-time residence cum resort Mar-a-Lago resort – that got labelled as Southern White House and Winter White House – has a 9-hole golf course. His love for golf is widely known. So much so that the second assassination bid on him during the 2024 campaign was at his golf course at West Palm Beach.
Trump owns or manages courses in close to 16 countries. These aren’t just in the US, UAE and Europe but also in Puerto Rico and Indonesia. Though, till very recently tax records show that most of them have been suffering losses. But then Trump is a master of using his greens for networking and spreading the myth of him being the ultimate winner. hook or crook.
The greens that have been a witness of his fortunes and misfortunes also castigate him as a liar and cheater. It’s all dutifully documented in the hilariously funny and painfully investigated book ‘Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump’.
Seasoned sports writer and one-time Sports Illustrated ‘back-page’ column Rick Reilly’s New York Times best-seller is a riot, and a page-turner. Reilly’s work is based on interviews with candid caddies, fallen-out-of-favour managers and golf club regulars. The book also has accounts of Trump’s celebrity golf partners, including the writer himself.
Here are a few gems from the caddies that explains Trump:
* The caddies got so used to seeing him kick his ball back onto the fairway, they came up with a nickname for him: “Pele”
* “I saw Trump’s ball go in the lake … I mean, I saw the ripples! … But the ball was back on the fairway. When we asked him what happened, he said, ‘Must’ve been the tide.’”
* He kept a can of red spray paint in his cart. Whenever his ball hit a tree … he’d go up and paint a big X on it. The next day, the tree was gone.
* Even with a gallery, marshals and me standing there, he openly cheated at least 10 times in the round … He kicked his ball away from tree stumps, improved his lie, grounded his club in traps, and on the green repeatedly cheated on his ball marking, making sure to get his ball closer to the cup.
The book also quotes Harvard psychiatr Dr. Lance Dodes to understand the alleged immoral golfer. “He needs to be the best at everything. He can’t stand not winning, not being the best .. To him, not being the best is like fingernails on the blackboard to you … He exhibits all the traits of a narcissic personality disorder.”
But it is the first line of the book – a quote master wordsmith PG Wodehouse – that sums Trump and his golf. “To find a man’s true character, play golf with him.” Here’s wishing luck to America for unanimously agreeing to play another round with the golfing president on the back-nine.
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