In Front of Our Noses: Trump’s Character [Slight Update]
Golf reveals character.
“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”-George Orwell.
For previous entries, click here.
Via The Daily Beast: Golf Author Calls Out ‘F***ing Cheat’ Trump Over New Viral Course Video.
If I am being fair (more fair than Trump ever is), I will admit that while it looks like he is dragging the ball into the hole (the shorter of the two motions in the video), it is unclear to me from the video clip if that is for sure what he was doing. Riley has a stronger point about the caddy dropping the ball. Indeed, I am not sure what in the world is going on there. Assuming the ball was previously marked, Trump needed to return the ball to the marker to putt.
I will say this: most golfers are pretty anal about the rules (golf is very much a collection of often byzantine and frustrating rules). This is especially true in tournaments (even just ones at the local course) and/or if money is on the line.*
The only reason any of the above caught my attention is this.
Not only is this some North Korea nonsense (the official White House feed should not be boosting the President’s ego), but I simply don’t believe it. I am willing to believe a person who owns their own golf courses and has been playing their whole lives might be a good golfer. But the notion that he is that good at 79 years of age, not to mention that much better than the field of competitors, simply boggles the mind.
Especially when there was this video from last week in Scotland, where we see some unambiguous, no-doubt-about-it cheating.
Also, this.
If he is going to cheat like that in a casual round, there is no doubt in my mind that he would cheat at a tournament at his own course.
And, there’s Riley’s book, Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump, which is an account of Riley playing with Trump and interviewing others who also played with him.
Prophetically, Riley tweeted this before the Bedminster tournament.
To be clear: I recognize that there are so many examples of the poor quality of Trump’s character that this may seem small potatoes. For example, I think that cheating on all of his spouses is worse. I think that his mountain of lies is worse. Indeed, I could go on (and on and on and on). But I do think that things like this can be clarifying for some people. But even beyond that, and why it seems worth noting for this specific series of posts, is that I think we shouldn’t allow ourselves to become inured to even his petty behavior, because this kind of utterly unnecessary, self-aggrandizing public dishonesty provides real, direct, and unfiltered evidence of his character.
I think, too, if you are a golfer, you know exactly how gross this is. I played yesterday. In full disclosure, I carded a 112. I am not very good. This included a stroke wherein I had a truly terrible lie, and my first attempt to dislodge the ball on the ridge of a steep hill resulted in the ball popping up and falling back down in almost the same location. But it was a stroke, and I counted it. I am not playing against the people I am playing with; I am playing against myself more than anything else.
Update: Let me put it this way. A person is free to play the game however they wish. If, for example, Trump’s age and health mean he wants the caddy to do more than he should, fine. If he wants to improve his lie because it enhances his enjoyment of the game, have at. But what you can’t do as a golfer is cheat and then brag about your score (let alone tout your tournament wins to the world). One of my sons recently played with some folks who talked about how they scored in the low 90s, but then he found out that they never counted anything over a double-bogie** and that they had very generous parameters for gimmee putts (if you play golf, you know what that means, and it means fraudulent scores). If I played like that, I would score in the 90s as well. You can play the rules loosely, or you can brag about your score. You cannot do both.
Indeed, when I look at various responses on Twitter to Riley and other’s comments on this, what I see are a lot of people who have never played golf, don’t know or understand the culture around game (especially at expensive clubs), nor do they understand how rare it is for an amature to score sub-70 in a round, let alone two in a row (correction: I misread the card, that is his gross score and then adjusted net, but the basic point stands).
What all this shows is that Trump is not interested in real winning. He is not interested in real accomplishments. He is interested in appearing to win. He is interested in faux dominance.
This should be remembered the next time he fires someone because he doesn’t like the numbers, or, more importantly, the next time he is sitting next to a world leader pretending like he just made the best deal ever.
He continues to be a fake and a phony who preens, blusters, and bullies, but at the end of the day, is still just a reality TV star who produces his own show.
I would hasten to add that that doesn’t mean he isn’t doing a lot of damage, because he is.
*My youngest son and I were playing a month or so ago on a public course one Sunday morning, and there was a group of four guys clearly playing for money. Some rules questions led to the biggest shouting match I have ever seen on a golf course, and later, we noticed the group had split into two pairs. The issue was one of sequencing, and not about an actual shot. It was purely a rules issue, not a skill one. If non-golfers don’t believe me about how rules are important to serious golfers, go to a golf forum and watch people debate these things.
**If you double-bogie every hole, you score 108. So if you manage a couple of pars and five bogies, you break 100. And if you are getting free putts from 10 feet out, you are likely getting more than two pars and maybe even a birdie or two. I can guarantee that under those parameters, I would have easily broken 100 yesterday, as my poor score was largely the result of several blow-up holes (8s, 9s, and a 10).
Bingo! If you will cheat at golf, in broad daylight, when you know your every public move is likely being recorded, you will certainly cheat at all things big and small when the lights are out. I used to think Karl Rove was the quintessential amoral POS, but his lack of character pales in comparison to that of our disordered Grifter in Chief.
Reminds me of the videos of Putin playing hockey with some real hockey players. He was by far the slowest guy on the ice. They avoided any contact with him. They let him score and then talked about what a great hockey player he is. Anyway, the non-golfers will poo-poo this and the conservative golfers will keep quiet or claim that everyone cheats a bit occasionally.
Steve
There’s a great line in the movie “The Hustler”. Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats has just beaten Paul Newman’s Fast Eddie Felson in a marathon game of pool, Fats has put on his fine tailored suit and is adjusting his cuffs and says to Fast Eddie, “You got no class, Fast Eddie, you got no class”.
I think of that line, every time I hear of Trump pulling a stunt like this. You got no class Donny, you got no class.
@steve222:
Much as every businessman occasionally commits 34 criminal acts of fraud as our resident trolls have contended.
I find this In Front of our Noses series important and invaluable. Nevertheless, it is crucial on occasion to remind ourselves that these relentless episodes reveal much less about Trump’s character than they do of those Republicans and other enablers who continue to support and even revere this steaming pile of poor behavior.
If it requires constant struggle to see what is in front of our noses, then it must be true that it requires constant depravity from those who manage to ignore what is in front of their own.
I’m not sure the complete absence of character counts as character.
Has he picked the Sharpie to head the BLS yet?
I had a backgammon program for PC that beat me most times. It also had a cheat mode that allowed you to set the dice roll. Well, using that, I could beat the program senseless time after boring time. About the only challenge was how many of the opponent’s pieces I could keep off the board. I stopped playing it after a few days.
You could also set up a starting board in any way you liked. So I could win the game in one roll, any roll. It was fun maybe three times.
If there is a prize for the wordiest explanation of the obvious, Dr. Taylor has almost certainly won it for 2025, and possibly the decade. Over 1,000 words to describe Trump’s golf “etiquette”? I can do it in four: he’s a scumbag cheater.
For the record, I’m just busting chops here, it is in fact nice to have it looked at from a more dispassionate, intellectual view.
I’m a legitimate 6.2 handicap. I’ve played many of Trump’s courses before he purchased them. I’ve seen Trump’s swing enough times to know that there is no way, EVER, that he’s winning any tournament, much less a tournament which includes fit, healthy, 30, 40, and 50 year olds.
Having said all that, I could give Trump four shots a side, and beat him every single time. Every. Single. Time. No way a guy with that swing, at that age, with those physical limitations, is breaking 80 with any regularity. It’s just not happening. I play with some very good 75 year olds. They can’t beat me. They’re just not long enough off the tee. They’re hitting second shots from 200 and 175 and I’m hitting those second shots from 160 and 135. You’re never going to beat me if you’re going at the green with a hybrid, and I’m coming in with an 8 iron. Or a six iron vs a pitching wedge. Not gonna happen.
Like everything else, though. Trump will get a pass from the media, and it’s just another case of Trump being Trump.
I’m probably one of the few people on the planet – who does not play professionally or competitively at a college – who actually plays more golf than Trump. I’ve been in NM for 13 days, and I’ve played 7 full rounds, and 2 nine hole rounds, and practiced twice.
I’m in moderation… again.
As mentioned in the post…Rick Reilly actually predicted Trump’s win.
Lo and behold…
Here’s Reilly, from a year ago, detailing Trump’s cheating, and how in real tourney’s he can’t even break into the top half of the field.
https://youtu.be/FQO4DNZOtZI
Trump has a PHD in bullshit…Piled Higher and Deeper.
I make some effort to understand conservatives, but I have utterly failed to understand how anyone sees something to admire in Trump. But this piece reminds me that in my minimal exposure to country club types, through tennis and business, I saw that mentioning someone was an asshole was a breach of etiquette, but being an asshole was not. In fact it seemed to be admired.
Can you imagine the 5-alarm scandal this would be if a Democrat like Obama had done this? Of course it’s just, uh, par for the course for Trump, so I guess it’s no biggie.
I suppose Fox News and like media aren’t reporting on this?
Anne Laurie at Balloon Juice quotes a Bluesky post that says something important.
This was directed at Trump’s firing of the BLS Commissioner, but it explains much. No one thought a prez would openly and eagerly collect bribes, so the emoluments clause was never codified in law. No one thought a prez would try to prevent Congress from certifying an election, so doing so was never specifically outlawed nor legally defined as insurrection. And no one thought to pass laws providing enforcement the 14th Amendment. No one thought a prez would impose drastic tariffs on a whim, so while they made tariffs a matter for congress and treaty, they never established prohibitions and punishment for such a prez. And so on.
@Lucys Football:
These are my family-friendly four words that describe Trump’s golfing etiquette:
‘Garbage in, garbage out.’ which, as it turns out, may reasonably be applied to nearly everything Trump does.
@Lucys Football:
It’s a gift. 😉
Snap!
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/08/he-wants-eleven-dollar-bills-youve-only-got-ten
And there seems to be nothing he won’t lie about, as there is nothing he won’t try to cheat on. It could be his height or his golf game, as we can plainly see he’s not 6’-3” and he’s not playing golf by the rules. These may be trivial matters, but should be further evidence for everyone to see that he will reflexively and habitually lie and cheat.
Trump cheats, steals, lies, molests, bullies, mocks, and yet he has become the evangelicals’ and GOP’s Dictator Perpetuo. Washington led thirteen colonies into one nation and Lincoln made sure our national house was not divided. Yet, here is Trump openly practicing the Ides. All too soon using the word “United” in the title of our country will turn its meaning into a contronym.
Ron Filipkowski nailed it
The Rules of Golf are much shorter than the official rules for almost any team sport. And with a couple of exceptions, they are all what common sense would suggest.
Back when I played (to a seven handicap from the men’s tees, not the championship tees), I was known to ask on the first hole, “Are we playing golf today, or are we playing that thing where you make up the rules as you go?” Trump plays that thing where you make up the rules.