Yes…Donald Trump Makes Golf Look Bad

It’s time for a huge mea culpa on my part. Or should I say a yuuuge mea culpa.

Previously in this space I had asked the question “Is Donald Trump Good for Golf?”  And at that time, long before he crashed the political party, I gave him his signature sign of approval, a thumbs up (ugh). During a downtime in the golf industry he was one of the few spending money on courses and I was hoodwinked into the stance that any new money in the game was good money. Forgive me…I was so very wrong.

His money was never used to promote or expand the game as I and many others had hoped. But rather it was designed to build up his bottom line through his stable of private clubs and therefore making an already exclusive game even more so.

The sport of golf lies in a tenuous space in the American sports psyche. Many deride it as an elitist game played by rich white guys who spend much effort in keeping a great distance between the working man and their cloistered lifestyle.

The majority of golf in America is played by working class people on public courses that don’t discriminate against anyone. The virtues of this game get lost in the babble that surrounds Trump. He has not only become our president but has taken on the role of First Golfer of the United States. This is the role he shows passion for, not his elected position of President.

Comedian Joe Zimmerman has taken Trump to task in an opinion piece in the New York Times and he has cracked one right down the middle.

He says “Donald Trump Makes Golf Look Bad.” And I, as any politician has done in the past have flipped my stance. Zimmerman is so very right.

Golf was so close! It was so close to moving beyond that stereotype — the image of a rich, old, unathletic white man making sexist jokes and trading real estate tips. The image of someone like Donald Trump.

The dominance of Tiger Woods started to make it seem cool, and the First Tee program tried to make it accessible for kids of all backgrounds. But Tiger Woods disappeared for a while. And now the president, who generally likes to spend long holiday weekends near a golf course, is hogging golf’s headlines. It’s making me think twice before admitting out loud that yes, I am a golfer.

Zimmerman calls out Trump for betraying the honor of the game and his own integrity.

The most confusing aspect of President Trump as golfer is that golf is the ultimate test of integrity and humility. There are no referees, so it’s on you to count your own strokes. Golfers develop a very strict honor code and a moral obligation to themselves and their playing partners to be 100 percent honest. And if golf is nothing else, it is humbling — when you hit your ball into a lake, there is simply no denying it (fake water!) and no one to blame but yourself (liberal wind!).

But the president appears to have skipped those lessons, and he tends to behave like the one guy at the course who is hand-wedging the ball out of the trees. Golfers like this do exist, but no one wants to play with them. People like this get asked to play once and then never get invited back: “Remember that guy who parked his golf cart on the greens?” “Yeah, the guy who left his Aerosmith ringtone on full blast and picked up every putt inside 10 feet?” You don’t have to be invited to play, though, when you own the course.

One of the complaints about golf is the fact that it takes so long to play. But as Zimmerman points out that also makes it appealing to many golfers.

Golf’s biggest strength is also its greatest weakness: You disappear into a different world for five hours — a magical forest world where you drive your own buggy and send a tiny sphere at the sky.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump said, “I’m going to be working for you; I’m not going to have time to play golf.” But in his first year, he spent more than 90 days at a golf club. It’s pretty clear to me he’s turning to golf as an escape from a job he finds unrewarding. Which might not be the worst thing for him, or us.

That last thought is telling. Maybe Trump’s time on the course is actually a good thing. It’s harder to screw up the country when your driving your golf cart over the green.