Donald Trump shared a video of himself teeing off on Truth Social Sunday morning.
He didn’t say anything else on social media about winning the Senior Club Championship at his Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida later that day. That might have had something to do with the blowback he received after the White House put out a statement on Saturday — fresh off a Trump tariff-induced stock market tumble — announcing he advanced to the final round.
Instead, conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer had Trump covered, announcing his big win on X.
“BREAKING,” she wrote. “President Trump just won the Senior Club Championship at his Trump Jupiter Golf Club. He tied with another member, and they shared the Championship title.”
Loomer then shared a photo of Trump accepting the title and congratulated him.
The president did answer questions from reporters later in the day, and he was asked how the tournament went.
“Very good.” he said. “Because I won. It’s good to win. You heard I won, right? Did you hear I won? Just to back it up from there, I won. I like to win.”
He was asked how his handicap is these days.
“Very low,” he said. “I have a very low handicap.”
It was Trump’s second golf title at one of his own club’s this year and fourth in a row.
For just about any golfer, winning so many consecutive titles would be remarkable. So, naturally there are those out there who have been more than a bit skeptical of how the president keeps winning tournaments at 78-years-old.
There is a chance that the president is just really, really good at golf. He certainly plays a lot.
In fact, Trump was sworn in on Jan. 20, and per HuffPost, he has run up more than $26 million in taxpayer funded golf trips since. To put that in perspective, the president spent $151.5 million playing golf during his entire first term. So, he is on pace to blow away that total in his second term.
The other option is … well, author Rick Reilly has been an outspoken critic on the president and the way he operates on the golf course. He is emphatic that Trump cheats.
Reilly shared a screen shot of the president’s club championship announcement on X last month and responded.
“REALLY? THAT’S AMAZING, SIR!” Reilly wrote. “CONGRATS TO YOU, THE CADDIES WHO KICK YOUR BALL OUT OF THE ROUGH, THE STOOLIES WHO LET YOU WIN OR GET THROWN OUT OF THE CLUB, THE SPINELESS PRO AT YOUR CLUB WHO DOESN’T WANT TO GET FIRED, AND THE 100S OF FEET OF GIMMIES YOU GIVE YOURSELF! BRAVO!”
Reilly has written a book entitled “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump.” He says he has golfed with Trump, and he has made a habit of ringing the alarm each time the president claims another title.
“He’s never won a championship at a course he doesn’t own and operate,” Reilly said after Trump claimed he won the title last year. “He’s played in Pebble Beach. He’s played in the Tahoe one, where there are rules and judges and cameras. And in those, he’s never finished in the top half. So, he wins when anybody who disagrees that he won is out of the club. That’s how he gets it.”
Reilly elaborated further, claiming that Trump gets a “turbo-charged golf cart” so that he can get ahead of the competition and put some distance between him and them, giving him “time to cheat.”
Reilly also appeared on CNN last year where he laid into Trump again.
“He cheats like a mafia accountant,” he reportedly said. “He cheats crazy. He cheats whether you’re watching or not. He cheats whether you like it or not. He kicks the ball out of the rough so many times the caddies call him Pelé.”
Reilly has posted on X multiple times about Trump’s golf game since his first title of the year last month.
“He also sucks at keeping score, rules, and losing,” Reilly wrote on March 19 while sharing a photo of a woman holding a ‘Trump Sucks At Golf’ sign. “so he fluffs up his lies and lies about his scores so he can score stolen trophies which he shows to his trophy wife, who sleeps in the other bedroom.
“He lives a lie. #CommanderInCheat.”
And, heading into the weekend, he shared a photo of Turmp shaking hands with the Saudis and wrote, “Thank you #PresidentTrump!. Thanks to your (expletive) tariffs, we get to watch our 401ks crash while you play golf w/bloody Saudis. Hope you get poison ivy.”
For those more 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.
For those who don’t have a problem with the president’s golfing tab and think he’s just really, really good and should get to play all he wants — congrats, your guy just got another “W.”
