Rick Reilly does not miss a chance to rip Donald Trump when it comes to the game of golf, and the president keeps serving up the opportunities.
The latest came with Trump’s recently reported medical exam. There were plenty of eye-opening things on there. For instance, Trump was listed as standing 6-foot-3 and weighing 224-pounds, and that spawned a whole series of side-by-side photos on X featuring the president and NFL players of the same or similarly reported height and weight.
And … well, he does not, in fact, seem to be built in the same way that new Steelers receiver DK Metcalf is.
But the thing that caught the eye of Reilly, the famed former Sports Illustrated columnist, was the golf note.
“President Trump remains in excellent health, exhibiting robust cardiac, pulmonary, neurological, and general physical function,” White House physician Sean Barbabella wrote.
That is when he noted that Trump’s “days include participation in multiple meetings, public appearances, press availability, and frequent victories in golf events.”
Enter Reilly, the author of the 2019 book, “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump.”
“Trumps doc says he’s amazingly fit, in part to all his ‘victories in golf tournaments,‘” Reilly wrote. “It’s true. When you have to kick your ball out of rough, throw it out of bunkers and fish it out of pounds before the other guys catch up to you, it burns up the calories. #CommanderinCheat.”
Trump has claimed two club tournament titles recently and Reilly has been there to critique him on social media every step of the way.
“Just a reminder, Trump doesn’t actually ‘win’ these tournaments,” he recently wrote. “He’s never ‘won’ anything held at a course he doesn’t own. It’s like getting your 4-year-old ‘win’ at checkers. It’s all pretend. #CommanderInCheat.”
Reilly 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.”
