Golf: Donald Trump's little arrangements with reality
The US president boasts of having won a total of 18 amateur golf club championships. But after an investigation recounted in a book, sports columnist Rick Reilly, who himself played against the American president, could not confirm any of these victories.
Is the golfer that is Donald Trump different from the president, whom we know better?
To believe the famous American sports columnist Rick Reilly, who has just devoted an entire book to the real estate mogul's golf practice and what it says about the president, the answer is no. In particular with regard to its relation to the truth. For the author, Donald Trump is quite simply a cheater, and his lies are well known by the small circle of American golf.
In his book, Rick Reilly reports the record that Donald Trump regularly boasts. The latter would have won a total of 18 amateur club championships. These championships are organized annually by each club, and bring together the very best of American non-professional golf. The name of the winner is affixed to an honorary plaque, year after year. Winning one of these tournaments is no small feat. Winning 18 is a real feat, almost unattainable. In reality, Donald Trump may well have won none.
"Such a big lie"
"This lie is so big that it loses all credibility among golfers the second it is spoken," writes Rick Reilly in an excerpt from his book published by The Guardian. And for good reason: one of America's most highly rated amateur golfers, George Marucci, known to have been two holes away from beating up-and-coming champion Tiger Woods a year before he turned professional, won only "eight, big maximum," he said himself.
But the author did not want to stop there and wanted to know what was based on the boasting of Donald Trump, who still spends a significant amount of his presidency on the greens. Rick Reilly has therefore toured the clubs whose American president is supposed to have made history. And it turns out that the reality is less bright.
Clubs that do not yet exist
For example, Donald Trump's name actually appears three times on the Trump International Club plaque in West Palm Beach. A club that he himself opened. Except that, according to the plaque, the American president would have won one of the championships in 1999, even though the club was not yet open. Asked about this lie, a former spokesperson for the president, Hope Hicks, admitted that Donald Trump had actually won a tournament organized during a kind of private baptism of the club. Impossible to fit that into an official count.
Another example, on March 17, 2013, Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he had once again won a tournament at Trump International. Except that his name does not appear for this year. It is a certain Tom Roush who would have emerged victorious. In reality, the American president would have won the senior championship, reserved for players over 60 years old. A victory certainly, but which does not have the same color.
Just won The Club Championship at Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach-lots of very good golfers-never easy to win a C.C.
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2013
A score of 0 out of 18?
After having investigated and interviewed dozens of players, but also many employees and other "caddies" (people who carry the player's bag but who also play the role of advisers), Rick Reilly therefore came to this conclusion: on the 18 championships that Donald Trump says he won, 12 would actually be senior championships, three cannot count because either the club was not yet open or it only had nine holes (against the 18 officials) and one of them is a pure lie according to the participants of the championship in question.
For the two remaining championships, Rick Reilly could not find any confirmation of a victory or a defeat with the clubs in question. The final score is therefore “2 uncertainties” out of “18 lies”.
There is not yet a balance sheet on the tally of Donald Trump's victories and defeats in the field of politics.
