President Donald Trump used a weekend golf victory to tout what he said was his 43rd career club championship, writing that he won two titles at his Bedminster, New Jersey, course.
“I won with a score of 70, and am so honored in that, unlike the rest of the field, I’m given very little time to practice, because I’m focused on many other things,” Trump said in a Truth Social post announcing the win.
The post drew fresh attention to Trump’s time on the golf course as independent trackers estimate the taxpayer cost of his golf-related travel and security has climbed to nearly $115 million.
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The figure has also revived comparisons with former President Barack Obama, whom Trump spent years criticizing for playing golf while in office.
Newsweek reached out to the White House via email for comment.
Trump and Golfing
An independent tracker estimates that Trump’s golf-related travel and security costs have reached nearly $115 million during his second term. Is Trump Golfing Today?, which tracks the president’s public schedule using flight data and White House pool reports, puts the total at $114.97 million as of August 3.
The estimate includes about $80.2 million tied to 59 days at Mar-a-Lago and West Palm Beach, $13.6 million for 34 days at Bedminster, New Jersey, $10 million for a five-day trip to Scotland, and $7 million for 47 days at his Washington-area golf course, with smaller amounts tied to visits to Jupiter, Florida.
The tracker’s estimates are based on the same 2019 Government Accountability Office report used in previous analyses of Trump’s golf spending. That report found early first-term trips to Mar-a-Lago cost about $3.4 million each, largely due to Air Force One travel, Coast Guard patrols and C-17 cargo flights used to transport his motorcade.
It also divides those trip estimates by an assumed average trip length of 2.5 days to calculate a daily cost, a methodology the site developed independently. It notes the total could be 20 to 40 percent higher once arrival, departure and advance-team days are included.
The nearly $115 million estimate builds on previous reporting about the cost of Trump’s golf trips. HuffPost calculated Trump’s golf-related travel and security costs at $101.2 million as of late March, when he had golfed 110 days in just over 14 months in office. Based on that pace, the outlet estimated Trump could spend about $300 million on golf-related costs by the end of his second term.
Beyond the cost, watchdog groups have also tracked how frequently Trump has visited his own properties since returning to office. The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) found that, as of mid-June, Trump had made 259 total visits to his properties, including 148 to golf courses, and had spent time at a property he owns on 191 days, or 37 percent of his first 512 days in office. Mar-a-Lago was his most-visited property, with 102 trips.
Obama and Golfing
Trump’s golf habits have long been compared with those of Obama, whom he repeatedly criticized for spending time on the course while in office. According to Is Trump Golfing Today?, Obama played 333 rounds of golf during his two terms, or about 11.4 percent of his 2,922 days as president.
The tracker estimates Trump has played golf more frequently, visiting his courses on 20.05 percent of his first-term days and 26.4 percent of his second-term days so far.
The difference in cost is largely tied to where the two presidents played. Most of Obama’s rounds took place at Joint Base Andrews, near Washington, D.C., allowing him to travel by motorcade. Trump’s golf outings have more often involved trips to his private clubs in Florida and New Jersey, requiring longer travel and additional security arrangements.
Estimates of Obama’s travel costs also are not a direct comparison to Trump’s golf-related expenses. Is Trump Golfing Today? estimates Obama’s total presidential travel costs at roughly $105 million over eight years, including international trips. Judicial Watch, using Secret Service travel records, calculated the Obama family’s personal travel costs at $105.7 million, while a 2016 McClatchy report cited a lower estimate of $85 million based on an earlier version of the same tally.
What Trump Said of Obama’s Golfing
Trump tweeted about Obama’s golfing at least 27 times between 2011 and 2016, according to a count by SB Nation. At a 2015 campaign rally, Trump told supporters, “Obama, it was reported today, played 250 rounds of golf.”
He repeatedly promised voters he would break the pattern if elected. “I’m going to be working for you,” Trump said at a 2016 campaign stop. “I’m not going to have time to play golf.”
Once in office, Trump reversed course. By 2020, after golfing more than Obama had over the same point in their respective terms, Trump claimed the opposite was true. “Obama played more and much longer,” he wrote on Twitter that July.
Trump’s tweets were part of a broader media campaign against Obama’s golf habit that ran for most of his presidency, often turning on the timing of his rounds rather than the number of them.
The sharpest backlash followed Obama’s golf outing at Martha’s Vineyard’s Farm Neck Golf Club on August 20, 2014, less than an hour after he addressed the beheading of American journalist James Foley by Islamic State militants.
On Fox News’ The Five, co-host Greg Gutfeld told viewers, “You have a problem with golf and it’s getting weird,” while co-host Eric Bolling suggested Obama should have “wait[ed]” or “cancel[ed] the afternoon round of golf.”
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Samantha Beech and Sam Wilson.