DORAL, Fla. – Donald Trump has finally run into something that keeps him away from the golf course.
The man who had played more than 250 golf rounds during his presidency and hadn’t missed a LIV Golf pro-am at one of his properties was a non-show on Thursday at Trump National Doral. This is the location of the last LIV event for the season.
It was much easier to run a country than defend yourself against four criminal charges totaling 91 counts of felony.
The Blue Monster was relatively calm on Thursday, as 48 LIV players and 105 amateurs took part in the pro am. The pro-am was quite different from the other events held on Trump courses during the first two LIV years, when the former president displayed his golfing skills. “For some reasons, I am a good athlete/golfer,” he said on social media this year.
Trump denied the friends and families of the Wednesday participants the opportunity to see the skills that enabled him to shoot a score of 67 on his course in Bedminster in New Jersey in August and win the Senior Club Championship in West Palm Beach in two days, despite not playing the first round.
He said that he was able to do this because he had “strength and stamina” – something most people lack.
We thought Trump’s best skill was to inflate numbers.
Trump’s absence on Thursday, when he would have asked Greg Norman to end his stroke count of 67, does not mean that his presence was not felt at the $150 million resort he purchased in 2012 and claims to be worth $1.3 billion.
Trump’s crest appears everywhere, from signage to trash can liners. In the Golf Shop, a large portrait of Trump is framed by magazine covers bearing his image. We assume that some of these are genuine.
The gift shop has everything from Trump shirts and pullovers to mugs, chocolates, key rings, and even teddy-bears.
There are many books on Trump, but you won’t find one about his dubious claims about golf: “Commander in cheat: How Golf explains Trump.”
LIV backing off Trump?
Trump said to reporters that he would probably not return to court during a break from his civil fraud trial on Wednesday in New York because he was attending a “very large professional golf tournament” at Doral.
Although his private plane was spotted Thursday parked at Palm Beach International Airport, he did not complete the journey to Doral.
Either Trump did not want more questions answered about insurrections, mishandling of secret documents, interference in elections, or sending hush-money to a pornstar.
Perhaps it was LIV Golf’s apparent decision to pull out of Trump properties for the next season. Trump has endorsed LIV mainly because he disdains the PGA Tour and predicted a year earlier that the league would merge with the tour. LIV gave Trump a stage (and a lot more money) to brag about his game and his courses, surrounded by fans who wore “MAGA”, “TRUMP”, and “MAKE AMERICAN GREAT AGAIN” hats every time they held an event on his properties.
Trump said, “I hit straight, I hit great drives, and I hit great irons,” about his game after playing nine holes in Jupiter with Brooks Koepka, and nine with Sergio Garcia, a year earlier.
Trump has not yet addressed the apparent split revealed by SI.com’s early copy of LIV’s schedule for 2024, which did not include events at any of Trump’s courses. LIV officials say that the schedule has not been finalized.
In the past two seasons, LIV held five tournaments on Trump properties, including two at Doral, one at Bedminster, and another in Virginia, outside Washington, D.C.
Trump’s 2024 will be an eventful year, especially off the golf courses.
LIV Golf could decide to leave the circus.
