Early one Sunday morning in August, 2002, president George W Bush pulled up to the first tee at Cape Arundel golf club in Kennebunkport, Maine, his father alongside him in the cart, and addressed reporters. He delivered a measured condemnation of an overnight suicide bombing in Israel that killed nine people, castigating those threatening the Middle East peace process. “I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers,” he said, pausing for a second before announcing, “Now, watch this drive!”
A moment so crass and ill-advised that even the tone deaf, brass-necked Bush administration had to admit the optics were troublesome. Not long after that unseemly episode, he put away the clubs for the rest of his time in office, realising how out of kilter it looked to be laughing and joking on fairways while a generation of American soldiers were fighting and dying in Afghanistan and Iraq on his orders. Even that smidgen of self-awareness in a mediocre leader seems like such a quaint memory now.
“WHAT A PUTTS!” declared the front page of the New York Daily News last Sunday, accompanied by a photograph of president Trump hitting from the rough, and a strap that read, “Don plays golf as US deaths from COVID near 100,000.” A major tabloid basically called the president a slang word for penis (putz) in capital letters on Memorial Day weekend, traditionally a time when the country stops to remember and honour those who died in the various conflicts. An occasion of solemn pause perhaps imbued with extra significance this year given the rising body count of the pandemic. Or not.
Mortal sin
“Some stories about the fact that in order to get outside and perhaps, even a little exercise, I played golf over the weekend,” tweeted Trump. “The Fake & Totally Corrupt News makes it sound like a mortal sin – I knew this would happen! What they don’t say is that it was my first golf in almost…3 months and, if I waited 3 years, they would do their usual ‘hit’ pieces anyway. They are sick with hatred and dishonesty. They are truly deranged! They don’t mention Sleepy Joe’s poor work ethic, or all of the time Obama spent on the golf course…”
The dyspeptic response was inevitable. Aside from the name-calling by a hometown paper, which probably angered him far more than the New York Times’ litany of dead front page for the ages, Biden’s soporific campaign finally woke up and made Trump’s golfing the subject of an attack ad. Not to mention social media was aflame with memes and mockery, the pick of the bunch being Dutch illustrator Mark Dolk’s image depicting the president in mid-back-swing, holding the scythe of the Grim Reaper rather than his trusted driver.
Having once made Obama’s perceived excessive golfing (he played 333 times over the course of his two terms) part of his campaign schtick, Trump assured prospective voters in the summer of 2016, “I’m going to be working for you, I’m not going to have time to go play golf.” Even allowing for the 75 days he just went without picking up a club, he’s currently at 265 rounds and likely to surpass his predecessor’s tally before November’s election. In the grand scale of Trumpian dissembling, it may appear a trivial matter that he played golf once every five days in 2019 yet it also has serious financial repercussions for him.
Aside from two outings in Japan with Prime Minister Abe, every other round took place at courses he owns. Each time he teed it up at Bedminster in New Jersey, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach or Trump National in Virginia, the substantial security retinue and support apparatus that must accompany him generated serious revenue for those clubs. Trumpgolfcount.com estimates his hacking around has to date cost the American taxpayer $134m in flights, accomodation and ancillary expenses. Not all of that has gone to the coffers of Trump companies, but given they have been known to overcharge the Secret Service for hotel rooms at Mar-a-Lago ($650 a night), the grift is blatant.
Self-worth
There is a strain of grasping American corporate male for whom the ability to play golf regularly, reasonably well, and, occasionally with celebrity partners, is a crucial way to measure self-worth and success in life, and the source of endless bloviating. Trump is typical of the species, a man-child installing a $50,000 golf simulator in the White House, retaining Rudy Giuliani’s son Andrew as his personal pro, and, as forensically documented by Rick Reilly in “Commander in Cheat”, flouting the rules every chance he gets.
This is why it means so much to his ego that Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Justin Thomas, Bryson DeChambeau and Ernie Els have turned up to play with him. Aside from normalising his odious regime, proximity to genuine star athletes is his oxygen, fostering his demented notion he could have been a contender too. The only surprising thing of the past few weeks is that he hasn’t so far reacted with any great vehemence to Rory Mcllroy belatedly becoming woke and distancing himself from his erstwhile playing partner.
Mcllroy’s willingness to criticise now was brave enough though because one day soon, when galleries return to tournaments, plenty of members of Trump’s vociferous southern death cult may be inclined to loudly defend their hero’s honour when Rory is teeing off. Now, watch that drive.
