CHAMPION CHEATER! Trump’s former caddie spills the secret of how the 80-year-old president keeps “winning” golf championships!
Donald Trump is 80 years old, but somehow his golf game just keeps getting better.
The president recently collected two more trophies at his own Bedminster golf club after claiming to shoot a 2-under-par 70, the kind of round that would make an accomplished amateur half his age very happy.
Rick Reilly isn't buying it. The longtime sportswriter has been following Trump's golf game for 26 years and literally wrote the book on the subject, Commander in Cheat.
And in a hilarious new WaPo column, Reilly tries to keep track of Trump's ever-expanding collection of club championships.
Trump was claiming 26 of them in 2024. By last August, the number had somehow rocketed to 36. By Thanksgiving, it was 38.
Reilly now has the count at 40, although someone watching the latest Bedminster awards ceremony came up with 43.
Keeping track isn't easy because some of these “championships” are truly spectacular feats of golf.
Reilly recalls Trump once explaining that when he bought or built a new course, he'd play the first round by himself and declare that the club championship.
Trump also claimed a two-day tournament victory in Florida despite spending the first day at a funeral in North Carolina. Another apparent championship happened while he was in Singapore meeting Kim Jong Un, which is one hell of a long commute to the first tee.
Then Reilly talked to a former Trump caddie, who explained how the magic happens.
“Everybody knows the deal,” the former caddie said. “He has to win the tournament and shoot the lowest score. It’s your job to make sure.”
There it is. Trump owns the courses. His employees know he's supposed to win. His caddies have long been accused of improving his circumstances on the course. And afterward, another trophy goes on the pile.
Look, nobody really gives a damn if Trump wants to cheat at golf.
Let him shoot a 46, award himself the Masters and build another room for all the trophies.
But golf really is a metaphor for Trump's like. He decides what he wants reality to be, surrounds himself with people who know are too beholden to him to contradict him, and somehow walks away holding the trophy, whatever it may be.
After 26 years of watching Trump play golf, Reilly may have stumbled onto the simplest explanation for how the man operates:
“He has to win.”
We just want him to go away and keep his character flaws on the golf course.
