Commander in Cheat

by Rick Reilly

  Rrrrring, rrrrring.

  “Hello?” Babineau said.

  “You need to take Doral out of your rankings,” Trump barked, skipping the customary opening greetings. “Take it out now.”

  “Is this Mr. Trump?”

  “Yes. Take it out.”

  “Well, first of all,” Babineau tried to explain, “the rankings are already in print. They’ll be in the next magazine.”

  “Doral needs to come out,” Trump insisted. “Take the course out.”

  Babineau said he couldn’t do that and wouldn’t do that. Trump then began to harp on the Golfweek writer in charge of the ratings, Bradley Klein.

  “Klein’s an idiot,” Trump kept saying. “You have an idiot in charge of your rankings.”

  Trump insisted this was more order than request. Doral had to come out of their rankings because… just because. He was hinting at removing all his advertising from Golfweek, and… who knows what?

  Babineau sighed and finally said, “Then I suppose you want ALL of the Trump properties out of the rankings, right?”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, for one, Trump International Scotland is in our Great Britain and Ireland Modern rankings.”

  “Where do you have that ranked?”

  “No. 1.”

  Pause.

  “Well, at least you got SOMETHING right.”

  Doral stayed in at 99.

  The long-suffering Klein is used to this from Trump. “He [Trump] started calling me about eight or nine years ago,” Klein says. “I was driving in Phoenix, and Donald calls me, and all of a sudden he starts yelling at me because Trump National [Bedminster] Old Course [wasn’t] high enough. ‘It’s the greatest course,’ ‘It’s better than this, better than that,’ on and on and on. He’s ranting and raving. At one point, he says, ‘I don’t know what I have to do. I’ll do anything you want me to do. I’ll call up the publisher and if you want me to, I’ll buy ads.’”

  Klein finally had to get him off the line. He said, “Mr. Trump, I can’t have this conversation. You’re fired.”

  When Trump can’t get what he wants from editors, he starts hammering the salespeople. “He’d say, ‘If I’m not No. 1, then I don’t want to be in at all,’” says one golf magazine salesperson who asked not to be identified. “Then he’d call and say the Trump properties were too exclusive to be ranked. Don’t rank them. He called me once and said, ‘You make my course No. 1, and you don’t have to work anymore.’ To which I answered, ‘Well, I’m going to have to work tomorrow. That’s just not possible.’”

  If you simply agree that Trump courses should all be ranked No. 1, you’ll get along really well with him. Once, in discussing Trump Washington, he told Golf Digest’s David Owen that it “blows away Congressional [a famous D.C. club that has hosted two U.S. Opens] like nobody ever blew it away. They say it’s not even a contest.”

  Congressional is ranked 80th by Golf Digest among U.S. courses. Trump Washington is good but unranked. It’s not in their Top 200 list either. It doesn’t even make their Best 10 Courses in Virginia. So he’s right. It’s not even a contest.

  Trump once tweeted that he was about to go play Trump International (West Palm Beach), “the number-one rated golf course in the State of Florida.”

  Okay… no. I’ve never seen a reputable ranking of Trump International as the best in Florida. It’s not within a par 5 of the best course in Florida, a state with so many great golf courses it should count as its own country. Seminole, for instance, is a gem and unrivaled in the state. It’s ranked 12 in America. The unforgettable TPC Sawgrass (Stadium) and its first-ever island green is ranked 49. I could go on. “I can probably name 25 courses in South Florida alone that are better,” says longtime PGA Tour star Mark Calcavecchia. “I mean, there’s nothing wrong with [Trump International], but it’s nothing amazing.” It’s ranked 156th by Golf Digest.

  To be sure, Trump has some fine courses. Trump Bedminster is very good. It’s already held a U.S. Women’s Open and will hold the 2022 PGA Championship, a major. Trump’s course in Aberdeen, Scotland, is sensational to look at, albeit a bastardization of a links course. His Turnberry is so much better under Trump that it’s crazy it’s currently not scheduled to hold another Open Championship.

  The problem is, Trump insists they’re ALL wonderful. “Every one of my courses is, like, amazing,” Trump said once. Really? Because if you’re speaking of your Trump National Hudson Valley, it isn’t even America’s best golf course named Hudson. (Hudson National is 81st.) If you’re talking about Trump Colts Neck, that’s just a muni with a fancy clubhouse and high dues. If you’re talking about Doonbeg in Ireland, you must be, as the Irish say, “thick as a plank.”

  Course raters for magazines are not allowed to give interviews, but I got a major American golf magazine rater to explain why Trump’s American courses don’t break an egg with them.

  “They’re mostly big boring Fazios,” the rater says. “Whether it’s Tom or Jim or the nephew (Tommy). But that’s what Trump wants. He’s a maximalist. The bigger, the better, the waterfalls. The other problem is the land they sit on isn’t interesting. So when really new, interesting courses come along, like Bandon Dunes or Friar’s Head, they’re going to push the big, boring courses off the list. I mean, you look at his courses and there’s not one that deserves it. Doral is only for the big Tour bombers now. Trump Jupiter is his best course in Florida, but it’s not good enough. Trump Philadelphia is crap—way too steep. His courses in Charlotte, Washington, Hudson Valley, Colts Neck—those are all big yawners. Trump invited as many raters as he could get to Trump L.A. and that backfired because that course is a real piece of sh*t. Trump Ferry Point, though, is really good for a public course (95th on Golf Digest’s Top 100 Public Courses), but otherwise, no. No way.”

  There are a lot of lists, though, and as we’ve seen, sometimes a Trump course will find its way on one. The first time Bedminster made a list, there happened to be a press event there and his then-chairman of Bedminster, Ashley Cooper, stood up with a secret that he just couldn’t contain any longer. With great pride, dressed in a beautiful summer suit, Cooper revealed that Bedminster would be showing up at No. 47 in the upcoming top American course rankings for Golf magazine. Cooper was practically bursting with pride.

  Then Trump stepped up. “I know Ashley’s happy we’re 47th,” Trump grumbled, “but I think 47th sucks.”

  Once, Trump was asked to make his own ranking. Which were the top 10 courses in the country, did he think? It read:

  1. Trump Bedminster

  2. Winged Foot

  3. Trump Westchester

  4. Trump West Palm Beach

  5. Augusta National

  6. Cypress Point

  7. Trump Los Angeles

  8. Oakmont

  9. Trump Philadelphia

  10. Pebble Beach

  What? No Trump Ferry Point?

  Trump’s rankings-grubbing strategy has two prongs: (1) Lie about the greatness of his courses and (2) Rip everybody else’s.

  To wit:

  Bandon Dunes in Oregon is America’s purest golf destination. Set in the wilderness against breathtaking cliffs, waves, and sand dunes, it’s all caddies and no carts, flabbergasting beauty, steak and whiskey and cigars around the outdoor fireplaces afterward. It might even have America’s best par-3 course, a 13-hole jewel designed by Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore, plus it has the Punchbowl, a rolling, football-sized putting course with waitresses in long gowns serving you cocktails as you gamble, laugh, and savor another perfect sunset.

  Trump despises Bandon Dunes, saying it’s set in a “vast wasteland.” Up against his Aberdeen and Turnberry courses, he called it “a toy by comparison.” Some toy. All four of Bandon Dunes courses were ranked in Golf Digest’s 2019–2020 America’s Top 100 Courses: Pacific Dunes is 17, Bandon Dunes 36, Old McDonald 50, and Bandon Trails 69. There are zero Trump courses on the latest list.

  But here’s the funny thing: By all account
s, Trump has never been to Bandon Dunes. “I checked with a bunch of my guys up there,” says architect Doak, “and not one of them had ever heard of him coming.” I did the same. I go to Bandon once a year, and nobody I know who works there had ever seen Trump, either. “We have no record of him ever being here,” says Michael Chupka, Bandon’s director of communications.

  Doak took it a step further. “I called a friend of mine who knows [Trump] and said, ‘Hey, next time you see Trump, ask him if he’s been to Bandon Dunes?’” The friend called back and reported, “Donald said, ‘No,’ but some of his friends have and ‘they say it’s nowhere near as good as Aberdeen.’ So that tells you everything you need to know.”

  Trump doesn’t do golf trips with buddies, and he rarely builds golf courses outside of the northeast or Florida or L.A. He’s only got one American course outside of those areas—Charlotte—and anybody who lives in Charlotte will tell you he almost never goes there. You could tell that when he got up at a rally in Charlotte in the summer of 2018 and said that his golf course sat along the “largest man-made lake in the world, by far.” Wrong, by far. His course sits along Lake Norman, which is not only not the world’s largest man-made lake, it’s not even among the top 10 biggest reservoirs in the U.S.

  Trump likes golf courses the way he builds them and everybody else can turn theirs into parking lots. He likes lush green grass, big water features—“the more water, the better for Donald,” Fazio says—and Pentagon-sized clubhouses anchored by 80-foot flagpoles. Nothing else will do.

  Exhibit A: When they played the 2014 U.S. Open at the classic Pinehurst (NC) No. 2, Trump excoriated it in a tweetstorm:

  I have numerous courses that are far superior to Pinehurst.

  I’d bet the horrible look of Pinehurst translates into poor television ratings. This is not what golf is about!

  To which longtime USA Today golf writer Steve DiMeglio added, wryly:

  Maybe needs 1 of your waterfalls.

  But here’s the thing: Trump wasn’t AT the U.S. Open. He was watching it on TV. He complained that the greens “looked terrible” on TV and it was a disservice to the game to have the Open on such a dump. But if you were there, you knew how sensational the setup was. The best greens do not necessarily look great on TV. The best greens are a patchwork of different grasses, a combination that produces the purest surface that rewards the truest putters. Sometimes that gives a green that looks a little brown on TV. It’s the kind of linksy land golf was invented on, watered by the rain, mowed by hungry sheep, natural and true. But Trump hates it. What can brown do for Trump? Nothing.

  Exhibit B: His waterfalls.

  “Jesus, the waterfalls,” says architect Jones. “I like waterfalls if they’re natural. But the kind of phony waterfall he builds, I hate. It’s artificial. It’s in your face. It’s Las Vegas. It’s clownish. But it IS in keeping with his character.”

  As you stand next to Trump’s 101-foot waterfall at Westchester, trying to putt, you find out it’s very, very loud.

  YOU: I think you’re away.

  FRIEND: What???

  YOU: I THINK YOU’RE AWAY!!!

  FRIEND: YES, IT IS A NICE DAY!

  When Trump Los Angeles opened, it had a giant fake waterfall behind the first hole, thundering so loudly you wondered if a tsunami was coming. Worse, when you were done with the hole, the cart path brought you within inches of it, getting the passenger wet, as though you were playing Trump Splash Mountain. Yeah, you’re wet, but you only have 17 more holes to go.

  Trump insisted on a waterfall at West Palm Beach, too. He also has one at Trump Washington, an otherwise wonderful course, wandering as it does along the Potomac and among the ponds and bogs near it. It’s just you, the eagles, and the wind on a really good golf course. Until, that is, you make the turn back to the clubhouse at 18, when, out of nowhere, a giant mountainous waterfall rears up behind the green. This thing is the Iguazu of Trump waterfalls. It pumps 25 gallons a minute and is so huge and fake that on the flattened top of it there’s room for 200 guests to fit comfortably for weddings, of which there are dozens and dozens, members say.

  “He’s got a thing for the waterfalls,” chuckles Fazio, who designed Trump Washington, D.C., with lots of input from Trump. “I remember he and I were on the site one day. There’s a ravine behind the 18th green. And Donald hollers at [his contractor], ‘Frank! Frank! I need a big waterfall here!’” Later, some of my people said, ‘Tom you can’t let him do this! It’s going to look ridiculous!’ And I told them, ‘Are you nuts? He’s the boss. As long as I get paid, I don’t care.’”

  Trump’s taste is Early Whatever Reminds You He’s Rich. When he gave me a tour of his Trump Tower apartment in New York City, the views were incredible, 270 degrees. But it all looked a little like Liberace’s bathroom. Everything was dripping in gold, crystal, or white gold–trimmed crystal. I sat down at a beautiful white grand piano and asked if I could play. It was hopelessly out of tune. Clearly, nobody had played it in years. “Oh, man, he was SO pissed you said his piano was out of tune,” reports Sports Illustrated writer Michael Bamberger, who has played golf nine times with Trump. “He was like, ‘That sonofabitch Reilly said my piano was out of tune! That piano is NOT out of tune!’” He’s probably right. I only play piano an hour a day. What would I know?

  There was a huge, gold telescope in the corner of the apartment, pointing downtown. I looked through it and was amazed at its power.

  “I watched the Twin Towers come down through that,” Trump said over my shoulder.

  I pulled my head away from the telescope and looked at him in shock. “Oh, my god,” I said.

  Trump nodded with pride and said, “Solid gold.”

  Greeting arrivals at nearly every Trump course is an Italian marble–belching over-the-top fountain, featuring four Poseidons, seven growling lions, and gallons of spouting water. It looks like it should be on Mike Tyson’s lawn. “When he first put that in, we were all like, ‘Oh, my god, how gaudy can you get?’” says Trump Washington member Gary Newman. “But now we don’t even see it.”

  One thing you can’t help seeing at Trump Washington is a Civil War memorial near the 14th hole, which overlooks the Potomac River. It reads:

  The River of Blood

  Many great American soldiers, both of the North and South, died at this spot, “The Rapids,” on the Potomac River. The casualties were so great that the water would turn red and thus became known as “The River of Blood.” It is my great honor to have preserved this important section of the Potomac River!

  —DONALD JOHN TRUMP

  It’s a very nice monument except for one little problem: It didn’t happen. No battle like that occurred anywhere near the monument. Three different Civil War historians confirmed the lie. That’s when the fun started.

  “How would they know that?” Trump replied when confronted by the New York Times. “Were they there?”

  He’s right, of course. Were you at Gettysburg? Then how do you know what Lincoln said? When the Times trotted out the names of its three prominent Civil War historians, Trump trotted out his own vague army of them. “I was told that by numerous historians,” Trump said.

  Fine. Names please?

  Uh, well, he couldn’t remember their names. Besides, he said, he hadn’t talked to the historians himself. His team had.

  Fine. Give us your staff names and we’ll get their sources.

  Trump refused. “Write your story the way you want to,” he said. “But many people were shot there. It makes sense.”

  No, it’s bullshit. I checked with Loudon County spokesman Glen Barbour, who looked into it and emailed that “the county was not aware of any historical significance on the property.” That was just immoral. What Trump did next was illegal. He cut down 450 trees along the Potomac River, the better for his members to see it. That’s illegal in Loudon County without permission, and nobody gave it to him, according to Barbour. He says the county was on a simple inspection there in 2010 when the
y discovered the tree-asco. They issued a stop-work order on any more changes, not to be lifted until Trump paid a hefty fine for cutting down all those trees, and restabilized the river bank. Bottom line? Trump got what he wanted without waiting and let his people sweep up the mess, as usual.

  That little trick caused even more upheaval, though. By removing the trees, the Secret Service decided it gave snipers a clear shot. So they decided nobody could boat or canoe on the river while the president was on the course, which angered fisherman, companies that transport goods on the river, and local canoeists, who sued.

  But the fibbing doesn’t end there. Keep looking at that Civil War memorial for a second. Below you can see the Trump family coat of arms, which sports three lions and two chevrons on a shield below a gloved hand gripping an arrow. The motto reads, “Numquam Concedere”—latin for “Never Concede,” truly Trump’s philosophy.

  It’s a beautiful coat of arms, except for one small problem: Trump stole it.

  It’s actually the 80-year-old family crest granted by British authorities in 1939 to Joseph Edward Davies, the third husband of Marjorie Merriweather Post, the socialite who built Mar-a-Lago, now Trump’s combo Winter White House/social and golf club. Trump made only one small adjustment to it—replacing the word “integritas” (Latin for “integrity”) with “Trump.” (Yes, he took out “integrity” and replaced it with “Trump.” Some of this stuff writes itself.)

  Mr. Davies was ambassador to Belgium and served as a special envoy for President Truman. Trump liked the Davies family crest and began passing it off as his own. He now uses it everywhere, on Trump golf towels, on Trump golf balls, even on the toilet paper in the luxurious men’s room stalls at his clubs. Yes, the toilet paper has his name on it. Not sure he thought that one all the way through.