Trump Wants to Seize D.C.'s Public Golf Facilities? Par for the Course.

The United States is currently in the midst of an affordability crisis, perched on the precipice of armed conflict or outright war with Venezuela, and attempting to revamp its entire immigration system and ward off shocking human rights violations against immigrants … in the midst of the country’s biggest measles outbreak in 33 years. It is safe to say that there are a few things on the plate of the President of the United States, in terms of crises that could use a little immediate attention from the executive branch. And so naturally, Donald Trump’s priority is taking near immediate federal control of … Washington D.C.’s public golf courses.

That’s according to Trump himself, speaking to The Wall Street Journal, noting that the federal government is moving to take over operations—a decidedly hostile takeover, it becomes clear—at all three of D.C.’s public, municipal golf courses: East Potomac, Rock Creek and Langston Golf Course. Those courses are currently managed by National Links Trust, a nonprofit formed in 2020 and given a 50-year-lease with the National Park Service—by the first Trump administration, mind you—to renovate the courses and provide accessible, affordable public golf to the D.C. area. Since that time, National Links Trust has been fundraising and jumping through legal hoops/permitting as it completes minor projects, with more serious renovation having recently begun at Rock Creek, which closed for construction in November. The organization has brought on well-known golf course architects like Gil Hanse, Tom Doak and Beau Welling to aid in the effort, offering pro bono services. But now, the Trump administration’s Interior Department is claiming that the National Links Trust is in fact in violation of its lease, issuing a formal notice of default and saying that the federal government will seize the courses to conduct its own renovations, whatever they may be. Trump’s own interest is reportedly central to the effort, and he told WSJ as much, saying that he didn’t want to work with National Links Trust despite his admin having awarded them a 50-year lease: “I think what we’re looking to do is just build something different, and build them in government. If we do them, we’ll do it really beautifully.”

Trump is, of course, an avid golfer himself: It’s the one demonstrable hobby one can associate with the President, given his utter disdain for activities like reading and seeming lack of any interest or knowledge whatsoever on subjects like cinema, fine arts, cuisine, other sports, the stage, or literally any other activity one might expect a billionaire to sink some time into. During his first term, Trump physically visited one of his own Trump Organization properties on 428 of 1,461 days in office, often to golf, playing at least 261 estimated rounds. In his second term, he’s been even more prolific: The Trump Golf Tracking website believes he’s golfed on 79 days this year. Amusingly, that site is now not updating as frequently, seemingly as a result of left-wing conspiracy theories about Trump’s declining health, insinuating that Trump’s listed golf outings cannot be counted unless there is visual proof, as they could be serving as fake dates to project an image of health. Even when Trump is shirking his presidential duties, we apparently can’t even trust that he’s goofing off!

Trump is now focusing on improving golf courses around DC??

hello, our country is going down the tubes and he wants to upgrade golf courses???

Can we get grandpa another hobby, like health care for all.

— Alana (@alana807.bsky.social) Dec 13, 2025 at 3:58 PM

The most intense focus of Trump and the Interior Department seems to be East Potomac Golf Links, the famed course located just south of the White House along the river itself, with each hole offering direct sightlines to the Washington Monument. The 36-hole facility is the closest golf course in terms of proximity to the White House, so it’s only natural Trump would assume this means he should fully possess every aspect of it. Its signature course is the Blue Course, which dates back to 1918. In recent years, said course has suffered from drainage problems and has a seawall reportedly in need of extensive repair. These were presumably all items on the National Links Trust to-do list in what was supposed to be a half century contract … which the Trump administration is now claiming must be addressed by “the end of the month” in order to ward off seizure. This seems like a clear Herculean task that the operators are intended to fail, which would hand the Trump administration access to a highly valued strip of real estate along the Potomac. Surely the President has only the best of intentions here, to serve the D.C. public.

The National Links Trust seems to have known for a while that Trump has been predatorily eyeing the courses. In what is easily my favorite detail of this story, the organization apparently presented the administration with a proposal recently in which they extremely clearly and pathetically attempted to tee up a grand groveling operation to the President, involving all his favorite things, from a dumb title to the idea of putting Trump on a board alongside prominent golf celebrities. The “Make DC Golf Great Again” proposal (*gag*) would have included a “special oversight board” chaired by Trump, and would likewise have included former PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh, Augusta National Golf Club Chairman Fred Ridley, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, and none other than freaking Tiger Woods himself. It seems that this last-ditch attempt to appeal to Trump’s ego, smart though it may have been, was probably too little, too late.

Regardless, if the folks at National Links Trust didn’t think the writing was on the wall, they probably should have realized it when dirt and debris from the recently bulldozed historic East Wing of the White House began being literally dumped between the sixth and ninth holes of East Potomac’s Blue Course, which is exactly what recently happened. You know, the same course that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told WSJ was in “total disrepair,” saying that only the President’s immediate intervention would bring it “back to what it was originally envisioned to be, which is the finest municipal golf in the country, right here in our capital.”

Trump’s actual intentions for these spaces, particularly East Potomac, are unknown, but you can bet that there will ultimately be some kind of financial benefit at the end of the day. In the course of his second term, initiation fees at Trump’s private golf clubs and country clubs have skyrocketed around the country: The initiation feed at his Bedminster, NJ club went from $75,000 to $125,000, and some members have apparently paid up to $350,000 according to the Daily Mail. Mar-a-Lago memberships in Florida have likewise become a trendy way to throw money at the President for preferential treatment, and now cost up to $1 million. Even Donald Trump Jr. has a recently launched “private membership club” in D.C. called Executive Branch, which has a membership fee of merely $500,000.

Or maybe Trump is just tired of making a 40-minute drive to his own Trump National Golf Club Washington D.C. in Potomac Falls, Virginia, when he could be rolling only a few minutes away to hit the links at East Potomac. Perhaps this would even save him enough time that he could focus on something like millions of Americans about to lose health care in the next month? Or maybe he’ll just squeeze in a few more rounds.