Trump heads for golf club – again – as defeat by Biden looms

With the presidential election in limbo and the nation deeply divided, Donald Trump began his Saturday by tweeting inflammatory and unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud. Then he went in a motorcade to one of his golf courses.

Rick Reilly: ‘Donald Trump will cheat you on the golf course and then buy you lunch’ | Donald McRae

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The president, the White House pool reporter wrote, appeared for the drive to his course in Sterling, Virginia “wearing white Maga cap, windbreaker, dark slacks, non-dress shirt, shoes that look appropriate for golfing”.

Trump’s dedication to playing golf while in office has been a source of continuing controversy – particularly because he famously and repeatedly lambasted his predecessor, Barack Obama, over how often he played the game.

Trump has defended his dedication, tweeting this summer: “My ‘exercise’ is playing, almost never during the week, a quick round of golf. Obama played more and much longer rounds, no problem.”

Media organisations have factchecked Trump’s claims, pointing out, though counts vary, that he has played many more times than Obama did at any similar point while in office.

Golf is like bicycle shorts. It reveals a lot about a man. And golf reveals a lot of ugliness in this president

Rick Reilly

Joe Biden, the Democratic challenger who is on the brink of defeating Trump for the White House, also plays the game. In 2015, Golf Digest put him among “Washington’s Top 150 golfers” with a 6.3 handicap.

“Should he become commander-in-chief,” the magazine wrote, “put him in the conversation with John F Kennedy as the best golfing president in history.”

The magazine also reported comments in 2012 by the former Ohio governor John Kasich, a Republican, that though “Joe Biden told me that he was a good golfer, and I’ve played golf with Joe Biden … I can tell you that’s not true, as well as all of the other things that he says”.

Doubts about Biden’s true handicap pale by comparison with widespread reporting of Trump’s behaviour on the course – which allegedly includes rampant cheating.

“Donald Trump is the worst cheat ever and he doesn’t care who knows,” the golf writer Rick Reilly told the Guardian in 2019, of a man he has known for 30 years. “I always say golf is like bicycle shorts. It reveals a lot about a man. And golf reveals a lot of ugliness in this president.”