0

Did Golf Enable Trump’s “Locker Room Talk”?

Donald Trump and I travel in different circles and thank God for that.  But we both have an affinity for golf though apparently for different reasons.

I enjoy the camaraderie, the challenge and the history the game offers and Trump likes making money off the game and maybe spending some time in locker rooms.

Other than a few quick showers in some of Scotland’s great courses on my recent trip I haven’t spent much time in locker rooms.  Forty something years ago as a teenager playing high school sports it was a different story and certainly back than the subject matter wasn’t suitable for public consumption.

But that was a bunch of immature teenagers and I would bet that all of us have grown out of that embarrassing phase.  Not so for Donald Trump.

He’s still living life as an immature teenager who hasn’t grown up.

Michael Peppard who is a lifelong golfer and former employee at both public and private courses writes in the Washington Post that we can blame golf for Trump’s behavior.

At its best, the game of golf is both noble and common.

A golfer meanders meditatively through lightly cultivated nature, strategizing not against a foe but against wind, water, slope and one’s own fickle mind. Golf teaches life’s fundamental lessons: the role of practice and humility in self-mastery, when to play it safe and when to go for broke, and the social conventions of spending four hours with complete strangers. The culture of golf is open to all, an everyman’s game. Scotland’s village putting greens have neither fences nor fees. And Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, the oldest public course in the United States, showcases the fullness of American diversity.

But at its worst, golf is a game of lying, cheating, blaming and gambling. At its worst, the culture of private golf courses propagates misogyny, racism, exploitation of undocumented labor and unchecked privilege.

Golf, at its worst, is Donald Trump.trump-bill

The relevance of golf to understanding Trump should have been clear all along. Golf courses feature prominently among his branding ventures. And if you catch a rerun of an old interview with Trump on the Golf Channel, what stands out is how earnestly happy he is when talking about the subject — a completely different person than the disgruntled bundle of id on display at his political rallies. In June, Trump even made the unorthodox choice to visit Scotland in the middle of the campaign. Some upstart candidates for president, feeling green about matters of international import, visit foreign leaders during their campaigns to open dialogue. Trump went only to open a golf course — and praise his immigrant mother from golf’s country of origin.

But there’s an ungentlemanly side to this gentlemen’s game, with which Trump seems well acquainted. The dark side of golf culture helps to unlock Trump’s worldview and behavior. Consider, for instance, that he used the phrase “locker-room banter” in his official statement that tried to explain away his foul behavior recorded on a leaked Access Hollywood tape obtained by The Washington Post. The phrase didn’t make much sense, especially coming from Trump. Athletes were offended by the analogy, saying that no one talks like this in locker rooms. And in any case, when was the last time Trump was in a locker room?

The truth is that Trump does go to locker rooms and that privileged, misogynist old men do really talk like this in locker rooms — locker rooms at private golf courses. In his official statement, Trump even tried to normalize his misogyny by reference to golf: “Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course — not even close.”

Peppard may be right. Trump’s bigotry and misogyny were probably enabled by the company he kept on some of his golf courses.  But it goes deeper than that.  A golfer doesn’t show up on the first tee without any prejudice and walk off the eighteenth as a bigot.  A golfer doesn’t become a misogynist because he is served a cold one from the cart girl.

Trump’s bigotry and misogyny were well established well before he purchased his first golf course and long before he ever touched a club.

Share

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.