Donald Trump is the most unconventional president in history, breaking social mores on an almost daily basis, and there’s little question that his attitude toward presidential norms are likely one reason why he’s been so divisive among his constituents. But if there’s one sure way for him to earn bipartisan disapproval, it’s on the golf course.
And according to the video below, which seems to show Trump breaking one huge golfing protocol, the outrage you feel is real—and totally acceptable. Though the original tweet from @MikeNFrank is no longer available because the user has taken his account private, the video was posted to YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6IrmHI5j94
For those who don’t understand how outrageous an act this is, here’s the problem. YOU. DON’T. DRIVE. A. GOLFCART. ON. THE. GREEN.
It leaves tire marks on some of the most prestigious areas of the course, and it makes everything look ugly and it potentially screws up the course for everybody who’s playing behind you on the day and you just don’t do it, OK?
But as the one who’s recording the video says, hey, it’s Trump’s course. He can do whatever he wants there. (And it is funny that as soon as Trump drives up to the group, everybody’s totally friendly and saying, “Hey, prez, what’s up? Everything here is great.”)
What Trump should do—what everybody who follows to a tee the unwritten rules of golf—is park his cart on the cart path and get out and walk to the green. Instead, he commits the offense that might finally get him removed from office.
I’m sure he takes all putts w/in 5 ft and lies about his score. Those you can dismiss but driving the cart on the green? WTF DJT? #Impeach45
— Mike Botkin (@botkin_mike) June 22, 2017
driving a cart on the green should be an impeachable offense
— KB (@permanentscowl) June 22, 2017
Trump driving a golf cart on a green is the last straw for me
— Abby Parsons (@abby_pars) June 22, 2017
This is not the first time Trump has been criticized for the way he acts on the golf course. David Owen from the New Yorker wrote in January that Trump is “a good player, and, even without adjusting for his age, he’s probably the best of the many golfers who have been President of the United States.” But he also might take liberties.
Famed sports writer Rick Reilly once caddied for Trump for a book Reilly wrote called Who’s Your Caddy, and Reilly told the Washington Post in 2015 that if you measured cheating on a scale of 1 to 10, Trump would have to be rated an 11.
More from the Post.
Reilly told the Washington Post about an afternoon when Trump wrote down scores he didn’t actually achieve on his scorecard, conceded putts to himself by raking the ball into the hole with his putter rather than striking it properly (“He rakes like my gardener!”), and even called a gimme—something a player might claim for a two-foot putt—on what should have been a chip shot.
“He took the world’s first gimme chip-in,” Reilly said. At one point, Trump, after taking a number of second shots, told Reilly to “make sure you write that I play my first ball. You don’t get a second ball in life.” In life, it may or may not be true that a person gets a second chance; and yet, as Reilly wrote, on holes 1, 13 and 17, Trump did indeed get a second ball.
Based on this, it’s pretty easy to see that Trump is probably a jerk in every facet of golfing, the kind of dude who takes every mulligan he can, who doesn’t replace the divot he’s just created, who doesn’t doff his hat to shake hands with his golfing partners once the round is over. The kind of golfer who probably should never be allowed on the course in the first place.
H/T Slate
