There have been whispers (well, louder than whispers) about it for years: President Donald Trump is someone who cheats, and cheats often, at golf.
In a new book titled “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump,” author and former Sports Illustrated and ESPN columnist Rick Reilly pulls together stories from around the golfing world, and finds a whole host of new ones, detailing how Trump is a serial cheater on the golf course.
Reilly interviews caddies, former playing partners, and more in the reporting of the story, and some of the tales are outlandish.
Trump by all accounts is a fine golfer, one who has played and continues to play often.
Yet Trump claims to have a handicap of a 2.8, a breathtakingly hard handicap to achieve, one that suggests his average round has him finishing less than three over par. Trump is 72 years old. As Reilly points out, Jack Nicklaus, while eight years older, plays at a 5 handicap.
Nicklaus is one of the two or three best golfers to ever live. Trump, despite what he believes about himself, by all accounts is not.
The cheating tale from the book run the gamut from minor – Trump will kick a ball out of the rough or improve his lie – to major – the book says Trump claimed he won a club championship even though he didn’t play in it, and told an employee to put his name on the plaque.
Trump claims to have 18 club championships, though Reilly said he admitted himself that he’d play the opening round at a new course he’d open, declare that the inaugural club championship, then declare that he won it.
Then there’s times he’s allegedly been downright disgraceful on the golf course.
And Trump doesn’t only give himself unfair advantages: he’s also been known to hobble his opponents. On another occasion recounted by Reilly, Trump was playing with Mike Tirico, the sportscaster, who hit a long, soaring second shot into a par five, high-fived his caddy, and headed for the green. When he got there, there was no sign of his ball; it had somehow ended up in a sand trap some fifty feet left of the pin. “Lousy break,” Trump said. Tirico was so befuddled that he took a seven. Afterward, Trump’s caddy told Tirico that his approach shot had actually finished up about ten feet from the hole. “Trump threw it into the bunker,” the caddy said. “I watched him do it.”
Reilly’s book is out now.
