CZERVIKAL:

Playing golf with the 45th President of the United States offers a revealing character study of him. Donald Trump's private clubs are where he feels most comfortable, and holding court with members and guests and employees is an important part of the ritual--in the pro shop, at the driving range and especially on the 1st tee, where Trump traditionally announces the teams for a friendly wager and will typically take the best player available for his partner. Some earnest person in the group will typically keep score, though the terms of the match are usually unstated and Trump's interest in the ebb and flow of the match is modest at best. Yet he somehow knows when his putt is meaningful, and he attempts those putts with a certain amount of fanfare.

SI spoke with numerous people who have teed it up with Trump over the years and all report that he doesn't play a round of golf so much as narrate it, his commentary peppered with hyperbole. "Is this not the most beautiful asphalt you've ever seen in your life?" he'll say of an ordinary cart path. At the turn he'll ask, "Have you ever had a better burger?" Years ago Trump was mid-round when he took a long call from Mark Burnett, the producer of The Apprentice. He put down his phone just long enough to play his shots, at one point saying, "Wait one second here while I blast this 250-yard 3-wood." Trump also lavishes attention on his playing partners. "We didn't talk any business because there wasn't time," says Ernie Els, who last February played golf alongside Trump and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. "He was more focused on making sure me and the Japanese prime minister had a good time. He kept on the two of us, making sure we had a proper introduction, making conversation, just being a good host."

Trump always takes a cart and a caddie, whom he pays well. He insists on driving. Recent footage that showed him navigating his cart across a green at his club in Bedminster, N.J., generated horror in the golf press, but this is old news at Trump's clubs, where he has been known to drive onto tee boxes too. [...]

Trump will sometimes respond to a shot he duffed by simply playing a second ball and carrying on as if the first shot never happened. In the parlance of the game, Trump takes floating mulligans, usually more than one during a round.  [...]

During election season, Bedminster morphed into a kind of permanent campaign rally site. Trump posters and bumper stickers were plastered across the property, and an anti-Hillary shrine was built in a bar in the men's locker room. The club held a Ryder Cup-style competition in which the teams wore either red or black Make America Great Again hats. At most other golf courses in America the TV is tuned to Golf Channel, on mute, but throughout last summer and fall, the television in Trump Bedminster's shop was on Fox News, with the sound blaring. As President, Trump has already made four visits to the club. He has his own cottage adjacent to the pool; it was recently given a secure perimeter by the Secret Service, leading to the inevitable joke that it's the only wall Trump has successfully built. Chatting with some members before a recent round of golf, he explained his frequent appearances: "That White House is a real dump."

Just talked to city mgr: City is investigating pellet-gun shooting of gophers by a contractor at Trump's LA club. https://t.co/NP5w1nlFbg

— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) August 3, 2017

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