But how many Course Championships did he claim as a result?
I would read a book about how Clinton cheats at golf, if one were to be written. I wonder if he just doesn’t care much about golf? I could see, for example, expediting a round by taking “gimmes” on long-ish putts. Still cheating, but with a pretty benign intent and result. Whereas Trump cheats at practically every opportunity and in multiple ways — including taking “gimmes” on very long putts — for the express purpose of making himself seem like a championship-winning golfer.
Not just taxpayer funded advertisement. His secret service agents had to pay greens fees and guest membership fees. Greens fees at Bedminster are $750 per round for non-member guests. And each of his secret service agents were invoiced that. It also wouldn’t surprise me if a nominal number were required to have memberships there too, at $14,000 a year with a $350k initiation.
It’s the perfect metaphor for the privileged old white men who play it, so that checks out. Of course they would design a sport where they all win no matter what (and also kills the planet).
The only reason I like/follow the sport is , my father was one of those priv’d white guys who thought he fit in with the rest of his banking executive buddies. Then his bank got bought and his father had a heart attack and died and Dad decided to go be a golf instructor. He started working at high schools as a coach and plays at a public golf course and it basically saved his life AND turned him around on the whole “friends with scumbags” front.
There ARE public 9 hole courses on land nobody really wants. They’re not elegant, and the Donald Trumps of the world wouldn’t be caught dead there and there’s a loud airport nearby and the landfill next to the airport.
I played on some of these when I was very young. The fairways were scrub grass and sandy scars, the tee boxes were more divot than driver-friendly, and the greens were brown circles hard as concrete. We had fun, but it was never a serious thing. One time a couple of us were gifted passes to play 18 at Torrey Pines. It was like peeking into an alien universe.
