I used to play golf with three other guys every Sunday at the Links at Galloway. We always paired off, with the same twosomes competing against each other. The matches were spirited but friendly. There was betting, but if you won five bucks, it was a big deal. We were semi-decent golfers but nobody was going to set the course record. An 80 was a respectable score, and anything in the 70s was considered a very nice round, indeed. We played from the white (middle) tees and there were no gimmes (conceded putts), to eliminate any arguments about when a putt was “good.”
One Sunday in the fall of 2013, I shot a 69 — one under par. This was a big deal to me, something I’d never done before and have never done since. My pals were all excited and rooting for me during the last couple of holes. There were high fives all around when I sank that last putt, and I bought beers in the clubhouse afterwards.
The following week, my playing partner, the painter John Ryan, found a small trophy at a junk store and engraved it with “Mr. 69.” It still sits on my desk, and I still smile at the memories it evokes.
This was all brought freshly to mind last weekend, when a former president of the United States made the following announcement on Truth Social: “I am pleased to report, for those that care, that I just won the Senior Club Championship (must be over 50 years old) at Bedminster (Trump National Golf Club), shooting a 67. Now some people will think that sounds low, but there is no hanky/lanky. Many people watch, plus I am surrounded by Secret Service Agents. Not much you can do even if you wanted to, and I don’t. For some reason, I am just a good golfer/athlete — I have won many club championships, and it is always a great honor.”
That is truly the saddest paragraph I’ve read in a long time. And no, I’m not talking about the fact that Trump thinks “hanky/lanky” is a thing. It’s sad because the man just assumes people will think he is lying — and, of course, he’s right. Bedminster is a professional-level, 7,500-yard, par 72 course, one where professional golfer Phil Mickelson barely broke 80 a few weeks back. The idea that the lumpy 77-year-old Trump could shoot five under par at Bedminster is as ludicrous as the weight and height (6’3”, 215 pounds) he gave Fani Willis last Thursday.
One could maybe give Trump the benefit of the doubt if it was a handicap tournament. (A handicap in golf is your established average score. If a golfer averages an 82, for instance, their handicap is 10 at a par 72 course.) In a tournament where handicaps are applied, if that golfer shoots a 77, his net score would be 67, but no golfer with integrity would then claim that he shot a 67. One suspects that Trump, if the score he claimed to shoot is true, won by using his handicap. But who knows anything at this point? I mean, this is the course where Ivana, aka mother of the three children Trump pays attention to, is buried, so there’s already some weirdness afoot.
But what really makes this so sad is that it appears Trump won his club championship in the stolid, sworn-to-silence company of Secret Service agents rather than enjoying the camaraderie of some pals cheering him on to victory. “For some reason, I am just a good golfer/athlete” is one of the most disconsolate sentences ever written. I can’t help it if I’m good, he says, “for those that care.” Yeesh. Poor Donny.
Even sadder for Trump, is the fact that he’ll never beat the record of the greatest golfer to ever lead a country. I’m talking, of course, about former Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, who in 1994 at the age of 52, shot 38 under par, with 11 holes in one. And it was the first time he ever played! Fittingly, Kim Jong Il died 17 years later at age 69, which is under par on every regulation golf course in the world. For some reason, he was just a good golfer/athlete — the original “Mr. 69.”
