Donald Trump has quite the knack for winning his own club championships, and if you believe the president he is darned good at the game.
For instance, when he won the Bedminster Senior Club Championship back in 2023, he reported a five-under-par, 67. That score was reportedly eight shots better than Phil Mickelson had at the course a month earlier.
Of course, something like that, combined with his tendency to win his own tournaments, has also earned the president plenty of doubters when it comes to his golf game. And nobody doubts him more openly than author Rick Reilly.
Reilly, in fact, wrote a book about the president and golf titled, “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump.”
Reilly makes a habit of commenting when Trump claims club championships, and he also was stirred up when video emerged from the president’s weekend golf trip to Scotland that some claim shows him in the act of cheating.
Reilly is still cooking Trump on X on the heels of that, and that included recently making up his own lines for this year’s Bedminster Senior Club Championship.
“Trump Bedminster Senior Champ is Saturday,” Reilly wrote. “Odds: * Trump wins by 10 (1-1) * Trump’s caddy rips rotator tossing balls from bunkers (20-1) * Replacement caddy is Ghislaine Maxwell (30-1) * Trump hits wedge off ex-wife’s grave (35-1) * Somebody else wins (500,000-1) #CommanderInCheat.”
“It’s the same odds as NK leader winning reelection,” one person responded.
“You’re the best Rick, you are so right about Donald Trump being the biggest cheater in USA history!” another wrote.
“Hilarious and true,” another person responded.
Reilly appears ready for that tournament, too, because he was actively talking Trump golf on Wednesday. The author reshared on X a clip of Eric Trump saying, “There’s no-one that’s been better for the game of golf than my father.”
“Actually, Eric, your father is the WORST thing to ever happen to golf,” Reilly wrote. “Now the world thinks it’s just 4 old fat rich white guys who drive their carts on the green, have their caddies cheat 4 them + lie that they won tournaments they didn’t even enter. Plz switch to pickleball.”
Reilly was stirred up again after the president’s Scotland trip over the weekend which cost taxpayers “at least $10 million” according to HuffPost.
Video of the president playing his Turnberry course had folks talking because it showed Trump pulling up to a bunker with his caddy walking ahead. The caddy leans down and drops a ball before continuing to walk on.
Was it cheating? Well, folks on social media seemed to think the clip catches the president in the act.
“Trump caught cheating at golf,” Molly Ploofkins wrote on X along with the clip. “Watch the guy in the red vest toss a ball behind him.”
Reilly reshared that post and wrote, “Well I’m just personally very disappointed in him.”
Another person shared the clip and wrote, “There was a thing in Rick Reilly’s book that said his dad heard Trump say he had lower handicap than Jack Nicklaus.”
Reilly responded to that, “that’s right. Jack’s handicap is 10 now and Trump continues to fluff up his BS handy to a 2.8, even though he hasn’t reported a score in years. Everybody from Tiger to Annikah to DJ to Ernie Els to Brad Faxon say he’s about ‘a 10 or 11.’ That doesn’t win club championships.”
The Meidas Touch account shared the video and just wrote, “Busted.”
“Amazing how Trump’s ball he hit into the deep rough just magically pops out of his caddie’s pocket and they all just play it off like Trump just hit it there,” Ron Filipkowski wrote on X. “29 time Club Champion!”
There are plenty more posts like that on X so it will be interesting to see if Trump has an explanation.
HuffPost reported that the current trip to Scotland is not related to a planned visit to the United Kingdom in September, “making it by far the most expensive golf vacation” for Trump in either of his terms.
“He’s using the presidency to market his golf courses,” Richard Painter, the top ethics lawyer in George W. Bush’s second-term Whtie House told HuffPost. “At the taxpayer’s expense, he’s promoting himself.”
“We’ve reached a point where the Oval Office is an extension of the Trump Organization, and American taxpayers are footing the bill,” Jordan Libowitz, of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, in Washington, told HuffPost. “A president should not be spending time trying to make money in a foreign country while in office, but if they do, at the very least they could pick up the tab for their business trips.”
HuffPost said it asked the White House if Trump planned to reimburse the U.S. Treasury for the trip, but the White House did not respond.
Meanwhile, Trump posted on Truth Social Friday, “I’m in Scotland now. Many meetings planned!!!”
HuffPost said the president has said he does plan to meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer while there. He also met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at Turnberry.
This comes as Trump has already piled up an incredible estimated golf tab during his second term.
According to the website, DidTrumpGolfToday.com which tracks the president’s time on the links, the president has now golfed on 45 of his first 193 days in office.
That means the president has played golf on 23.3% of the days thus far in his second term.
But that is not the big number.
The big number is the estimated taxpayer cost for Trump’s trips thus far, and his most recent trips pushed him to another milestone in that department. Per the site, the president has now spent an estimated $63,000,000 golfing since Jan. 20.
Yes, that is $63 million.
And that’s not counting the $600,000 revealed last week that the Secret Service is spending on golf carts and portable toilets for Bedminster. The Independent reported that the agency “signed a pair of definitive contracts with Associate Golf Car Service of Poughkeepsie, New York and Restroom Resources LLC of Wrightstown, New Jersey,” per federal records.
The portable toilets may be a wise investment considering the health department recently deemed eating at the course an “unacceptable risk.”
The Secret Service will reportedly shell out $80,385 for those with the contract running through May 31, 2026. The Independent said there is a “three-year renewal option, for a potential of $333,801.” The site reported that the golf cart rental runs through June 2, 2026, and is “worth a potential of $550,930.”
“The U.S. Secret Service has contracts in place for portable restrooms and golf cart rentals to support the protective operations in Bedminster, New Jersey,” the Secret Service told The Independent. “The golf carts are used by personnel in club facilities; however, additional restrooms are needed to support the number of personnel onsite. These rentals also allow for restroom access in additional locations on club property and when club facilities are closed such as after business hours.”
You can read more about the deal at The Independent, here.
And, yes, while Trump mostly golfs at his properties, the American taxpayer still foots the bill for the costs for him to play there.
Trump spent an estimated $151.5 million of taxpayer money golfing across his first term so he is well on his way to blowing that total out of the water during this second term.
Those are big numbers. Lot of millions spent hitting a little white ball. Which brings the obvious question of just how much it costs for the president to play a round of golf.
Well, for those concerned about how much it costs Americans for the president to play, the figures are from a 2019 Government Accountability Office report that examined Trump’s first four trips to Mar-a-Lago during his first administration. You can see the report, here. It calculated that each of those trips cost $3,383,250, and that was based on 2017 dollars meaning that the actual cost today is likely higher than the estimate.
The costs involved with him golfing in Florida include flying in on Air Force One. Also, per the site, the military flies the vehicles for his motorcade in on C-17s each time he makes the trip. Also, because Mar-a-Lago, where Trump stays while he plays at his courses, is on the water, police boats with machine guns and a Coast Guard vessel have to be called in to patrol. The site said additional costs included law enforcement and bomb sniffing dogs.
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