The "Caddyshack" President

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Elizabeth Williamson takes President Trump to task for turning the Mar-a-Lago ballroom into the Situation Room so that a response to North Korea's missile test could be sorted out.

As members shared photos of the man charged with carrying the nuclear codes on social media, the President openly discussed a proper response with Japan's prime minister. For this, Williamson invokes the Al Czervik metaphor.

Though President Trump never asked a bartender what time he was due back in Boy's Town or hit on Judge Smails' wife...

One would think leadership of the free world would have scratched Mr. Trump’s itch for publicity. But this is the man who called reporters using a fake name to generate stories about himself; who introduced a member of one of his clubs to a Golf Digest reporter as “the richest guy in Germany,” instead of by name; who looks pained when having to share the podium with anyone, from Sarah Palin to the prime minister of Canada. This is rule by Al Czervik, Rodney Dangerfield’s character in “Caddyshack”: a reckless, clownish boor surrounded by sycophants, determined to blow up all convention. But this is real life, and every time Mr. Trump strikes a pose, the rest of the world holds its breath.

Easy there, Czervik is no boor! Ok, maybe a tad...

 

 

Bernhard Langer: A Friend Told Me A Story, I Told My Friend Who Told His Friend, The President Of The United States!

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The following is a statement issued by the PGA TOUR on behalf of Champions Tour member Bernhard Langer, currently to blame for an impending voter fraud investigation demanded by President Donald Trump.

"Unfortunately, the report in the New York Times and other news outlets was a mischaracterization by the media. The voting situation reported was not conveyed from me to President Trump, but rather was told to me by a friend. I then relayed the story in conversation with another friend, who shared it with a person with ties to the White House. From there, this was misconstrued. I am not a citizen of the United States, and cannot vote. It’s a privilege to live in the United States, and I am blessed to call America my home. I will have no further comment at this time."

So to recap, Bernhard Langer heard a story about shady goings on at the polls, who told his friend, who told Donald Trump.

Downing Street Eyeing Trump Golf Round In Front Of The Queen

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The Telegraph's Christopher Hope and Ben Riley-Smith report on summer plans being made by Downing Street and the White House that will include a Balmoral visit. The story says there is a nine-hole course on the castle property, though I couldn't find it in aerials.

It sounds like it'll be quite the first visit:

Discussions are underway about the president playing a round of golf on the private nine-hole course at Balmoral while the Queen looks on.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are also set to be involved as the royal family rolls out the red carpet for the US President and his First Lady.

Mr Trump’s team want to create a photograph opportunity to rival the famous images of President Ronald Reagan horse riding with the Queen at Windsor Castle when he visited in the 1982.

As if we weren't already excited enough about summer!

David Owen On Lessons Learned Playing Golf With Trump

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Longtime New Yorker staff writer and former Golf Digest contributor David Owen writes about his time playing golf with Donald Trump long before the developer became president-elect.

Given that only one Trump course made the recent Golf Digest top 200 courses (no Bedminster or Doral!), this might explain why panelists do not rate his courses highly:

Golf publications periodically rate golf courses—the hundred best in the world, the hundred best in the country, the dozen best in each state—and Trump’s relationship with such ratings is complex. He complained to me that golf publications never rank his courses high enough, because the people who do the rating hold a grudge against him, but he also said that he never allows raters to play his courses, because they would just get in the way of the members. “I think we’d have a revolt with our membership,” he explained. “Because, unlike other clubs, every one of my membership lists is perfect. And when you start adding hundreds of raters who want to play golf . . .” Nevertheless, when someone from a golf publication does write something positive, after somehow having managed to slip past the perimeter, Trump quotes it endlessly (and, inevitably, magnifies it).

Owen also shares some of the feedback he got from an "upset" Trump after his story appeared.

He called the editor of Golf Digest to complain, and then he called me, on my cell phone. I was in the city on a reporting assignment unrelated to golf, and had the surreal experience of being chewed out by a future President of the United States while standing among the gravestones in the burial ground next to Trinity Church. He wasn’t upset that one of the article’s illustrations had been of a golf ball wearing a turf toupee that looked a lot like his deeply mysterious hair, or that I’d mentioned his asking two little girls at Mar-a-Lago if they wanted to be supermodels when they grew up, or that I’d described nearly tipping him five dollars after momentarily mistaking him for his club’s parking-lot attendant, or that I’d written that he’d introduced one of his club’s members to me not by name but as “the richest guy in Germany.” He was upset that I hadn’t written that he’d shot 71—a very good golf score, one stroke under par.

I hadn’t written that because he hadn’t shot 71. We hadn’t been playing for score, and we had given each other putts and taken other friendly liberties—as golfers inevitably do when they’re just fooling around. I said something to that effect in the politest way I could think of, but he wasn’t mollified. He was also angry that I’d described his wedge game as “poor.” (On several occasions, he’d had trouble with shots inside a hundred yards, both during our round and on the practice range beforehand.) I reminded him that I had mainly written very flattering things about his golf game, and that I’d mentioned his victories in three club championships and had quoted praise from his caddie and his pro (“You have a very nice bicycle, Donald, even if it’s not as nice as your friend’s”). But none of that made any difference. He wanted the number, and the fact that I hadn’t published the number proved that I was just like all the other biased reporters, who, because we’re all part of the anti-Trump media conspiracy, never give him as much credit as he deserves for being awesome. Such is his now familiar habit of acting like a sore loser even when he’s won.

Did Writer Trump-Up Account Of Trump Encounter?

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Politico's Kenneth Vogel does a nice job trying to figure out if President-elect Donald Trump had a former unauthorized biographer (understandable) and Koch brother/club member (not so understandable) removed from Trump International in West Palm Beach before they could tee off.

It seems writer Harry Hurt III, who took to Facebook to post details--in the third person--and gave the impression Trump had one of his members, David Koch, escorted off the property, actually did no such thing. That notion seemed unbelievable given Koch's status as a Trump club member and as an influential figure in American business and politics, albeit one that Trump has neutralized.

Here is the initial post:

 

 

Here is what Vogel concluded about the Koch portion of the story, which is the most incredible. If it had been true:

Another member of the Hurt-Koch foursome, fellow GOP donor John M. Damgard, told POLITICO that neither he nor Koch were privy to Hurt’s exchange with Trump, and that Hurt didn’t recount it to them in any detail.

“Harry just said he had been asked to leave,” said Damgard, a former president of the Futures Industry Association who has a house in Palm Beach. “I thought he was kidding. And then I learned that there had been some previous bad blood between them from back in the ‘90s apparently,” Damgard said, adding, “Unbeknownst to us, he had written a book or an article that was critical of Trump.”

So, Damgard continued, “rather than exacerbate something that wasn’t going to go very well, we just decided to get into the car and leave.”

They're Back! Trump Can't Let Go Of Scottish Wind Farm Views

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It was last December that Donald Trump, then just a presidential candidate, lost his court battle to stop unsightly wind farms from being erected off the coast of Trump International in Aberdeen.

The loss prompted a real, live manspat between Trump and his one-time good buddy, former first minister Alex Salmond.

But the Trump Organisation hit back at Salmond in a pointed and characteristically colourful statement: “Does anyone care what this man thinks? He’s a hasbeen and totally irrelevant. The fact that he doesn’t even know what’s going on in his own constituency says it all ... He should go back to doing what he does best: unveiling pompous portraits of himself that pander to his already overinflated ego.”

Fast forward almost a year and president-elect Trump is holding meetings with a wide range of possible cabinet members and world leaders at Trump Tower. Including a meeting where he just couldn't pass up multiple chances to bend the ear of a British politician about...the wind farms. Caroline Wheeler reports for The Express.

Andy Whigmore, who was present at the meeting with Mr Trump, said: “We covered a lot of ground during the hour-long meeting we had.

“But one thing Mr Trump kept returning to was the issue of wind farms. He is a complete Anglophile and also absolutely adores Scotland which he thinks is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. But he is dismayed that his beloved Scotland has become over-run with ugly wind farms which he believes are a blight on the stunning landscape.”

EU’s communication’s chief added: “It is clear that it is an issue he is very passionate about and not because he is against renewable energy or green technology but because he genuinely thinks wind farms are damaging Scotland’s bountiful natural beauty.”

At issue should be the proximity of the farms to the coasts, as Trump is correct in lamenting their placement.  Check out this depiction, accompanying this Herald story. I'm not sure about the 1 mile from the coast claim (11-12 is the number I recall, but correct me if I'm wrong please).

Either way, as Danny Hakim and Eric Lipton of the New York Times note, the greater issue involves using his president-elect status to possibly improve business conditions for the Trump Organization.

Mr. Trump and his family’s blending of business and political interests and appearances have received increasing scrutiny during the transition. Since the election, he has met with Indian business partners and his new Washington hotel has become a destination for diplomats. His daughter Ivanka, an executive in the Trump Organization, sat in on a meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, and her jewelry company promoted a $10,800 bracelet she wore during a postelection appearance with her father on “60 Minutes.”

Separately, one of Argentina’s most influential television programs reported on Sunday that during a congratulations call from President Mauricio Macri of Argentina after the election, Mr. Trump asked for Mr. Macri’s support for a project to build an office tower in Buenos Aires.

President-elect Trump responded to the news on Twitter.