President Donald Trump on his Bedminster, New Jersey golf course on July 28, 2022 (Image: Shutterstock)
President Donald Trump is transforming the East Potomac public golf course into something a whole lot pricier — and the former golfers there, young and old alike, describe it as a “real loss for a lot of people.”
“It’ll be a real loss for a lot of people in the city,” Bryan King, a 68-year-old Virginia mural painter, told The New York Times. He was joined by his son Eamon, both there to play before Trump’s planned renovations to the golf course make it unaffordable to working-class Americans.
“There’s plenty of very expensive country clubs in this area already. This has always been kind of, like, the people’s course,” Eamon King told The Times. The venerable newspaper reported that Trump’s “trucks drove onto the golf course and, somewhere between the fourth and ninth holes, began dumping mounds and mounds of [mud]. Tiny bits of rebar, wiring and specks of white plaster poked out from the piles.”
The “mystery mud,” it soon turned out, was the remains of the East Wing that Trump had demolished days earlier to build a White House ballroom.
“His destruction of one piece of Washington history heralded his destruction of another,” the Times wrote. In addition to the loss of valuable history, the Times reported that many locals are “profoundly depress[ed]” that “the billionaire president who operates more than a dozen of his own gold-plated golf clubs” is going to turn the affordable East Potomac course “into a baby Bedminster.” For example, the cheapest option for a round of golf on a day at Trump National Doral in Miami is $215, including $24 for a hot dog.
Trump’s East Potomac overhaul is also controversial because Trump says he wants to host major tournaments there. Top golf course architects agree that is not feasible.
“I think it’s a crazy idea,” Mark A. Mungeam, president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, told The Times.
In order to wrest control of the East Potomac golf course away from the general public, Trump has battled with a nonprofit called the National Links Trust which has as its mission statement that of “positively impacting our community and changing lives through affordable and accessible municipal golf.” The Trust protested when Trump canceled the 50-year lease that they shared with Washington on the grounds (which the Trust claims are spurious) that they have failed to uphold their end of the contract.
“The National Links Trust is devastated by the Trump administration’s decision to terminate our 50-year lease with the National Park Service,” the Trust said in a statement. “Since taking over stewardship of Rock Creek, East Potomac, and Langston courses five years ago, NLT has consistently complied with all lease obligations as we work to ensure the brightest possible future for public golf in DC.” Other experts have raised questions about the legality and necessity of Trump’s East Potomac golf course changes. For example Garrett Morrison, of Fried Egg Golf, a ten-year-old newsletter for golf fans, wrote that "to me, the claim that the NLT is millions of dollars behind on rent doesn’t appear to hold any water.”
Other public figures have also denounced Trump’s golf policies.