It’s small peanuts in comparison with the Trump regime’s brutal occupation of the Twin Cities and threats to obliterate NATO by “taking” Greenland, but it’s worth examining how the president’s authoritarianism has even extended to public golf courses in Washington DC.
The administration recently took the step of unilaterally cancelling a 50-year lease it had previously negotiated with the operators of three public golf courses in DC. The announcement, made December 31., leaves the largely volunteer, non-profit course managers of the courses, the National Links Trust (NLT), in limbo over its ambitious, privately-funded renovation plans for the trio of properties.
This raises questions about the future day-to-day operations of golf at the three popular, affordable golf courses: East Potomac, Langston Park and Rock Creek Park. It also portends the possibility of Trump himself stepping in to redirect the future of public golf in DC, possibly converting it to a gaudy model of costly, championship-oriented golf under aegis of his own corporate entity, Trump Golf.
One of Trump’s favorite golf architects, Tom Fazio, told Public Notice he had lunch with Trump in the Oval Office “around Thanksgiving,” before he made an initial evaluation of East Potomac. The 36-hole property sides along the Potomac River, near the Tidal Basin.
“It’s a little early yet,” he said. “There has been no specific discussion of programming possibilities. But the potential is good.”
Fazio added that he and his staff would be returning this month to take a closer look at the site.
For a guy who purports to love golf so much, Donald Trump sure disdains everyday public golfers. That’s the only conclusion one can draw from the latest episode of the Trump White House trying to muscle in on everyday American culture.
Apparently it has not been enough to propose plans for a monumental new arch near the Reflecting Pool, tear down historic office buildings whose design he finds objectionable, impose his name (illegally) on the Kennedy Center after strong-arming his way onto the board, or tearing down the East Wing of the White House to replace it with a monstrous banquet hall – not to mention announcing the creation of a new class of naval destroyers bearing – what else? – his name.
