Trump Corruption Now Touching on Sports Stars and Golfers

This piece first appeared in Rawstory

Threatening to call President Donald Trump to fix some manifestly just and earned punishment has become somewhat of its own sport of late. And no, this piece isn’t about the appearance of pay for pardons, although, in a sense, maybe it kinda’ is, too.

We have run into a spate of Trump-adjacent superstars facing consequences for something wholly unrelated to the actual presidency, but wholly offending Trump and his supporters’ worldview, which, boiled to its essence, can be summarized: “As president, my friends and I can do what we want, including bail ourselves out of trouble that impacts only normies, poor people, or libs.”

Now, no doubt, history is stuffed with guys (mostly) calling in “presidential favors” – whether it be for good seating at the Kennedy Center, admission to Harvard, or good placement for drilling in the Alaskan North Slope. Oh, and it’s not just a Republican thing although we’d like to think it’s “more of a Republican thing,” and maybe right. And, of course, presidents always had the pardon power.

But like so much else about Trump, none of this presidential favor stuff has ever been taken to such international heights, nor such mundane neighborhood lows. If corruption might help, there’s one man to call, and “the guys” (because they’re all guys) who walk around with Trump in their contacts increasingly seem willing to use it. And not for oilfields!

First up, the tragedy that is Tiger Woods. Ironically, many of us who might well extend a ton of understanding and prayers regarding a pain pill addiction taking hold of a man who’s endured more surgery and scopes than a redneck by aliens, now cannot due to how it all went down, as all hope for empathy crashed more spectacularly than his vehicle when Tiger called Trump when approached by the cops. Sorry, Tiger, that cannot be forgiven, no matter how high you might’ve been.

Next, of course, “The Red Card that Wasn’t” in the Men’s Soccer World Cup. To briefly review, American forward Folarin Balogun received a red card for an infraction that tossed him from the game and, by hard and fast rule, the upcoming match against Belgium. Nearly everyone agreed that Balogun didn’t deserve the red card. But everyone also agreed that once a red card is issued, the deal is done; it is not reviewable, period. Until Trump. Our president made a tantrum-like phone call to FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who, being just as corrupt as Trump, did what Trump asked (And what Trump does in these situations); Infantino defied every rule in the book and reversed course. Balogun avoided the one-game suspension and was on the field to receive some old-school ass-kicking karma when the US Team lost 4-1 to Belgium.

The lesson, obviously, is that if you are going to play the Trump card, you better be playing along with someone as corrupt as Trump. FIFA’s Infantino fit the bill; the Martin County, Florida, Sheriff’s office did not. They refused to “play ball,” so to speak, even with Tiger on the phone. At this point, everyone should at least be on the same page regarding the “Trump rule” (Find the corrupt antagonist).

Except one guy.

It was clear over the weekend that American golfer and mega Trump supporter, Bryson DeChambeau, didn’t learn his lesson, and not just because he never even got around to making the actual call to Trump, which makes everything even breathlessly worse – making the threat but not following through? Commit or go home! (Which he also threatened to do, but we’re ahead of ourselves.)

For those of you too busy watching the World Cup, too busy with real lives, or too busy to care about anything but golf or Trump, let’s review. “The Open Championship,” aka “The British Open,” is one of golf’s four “major” tournaments – the ones you wanna win. On Friday, Bryson found himself near the top of the leaderboard when he hit a drive that veered all but 45 degrees off the fairway into bushes and grass high enough to hide small deer. But his problems only started there.

Golf seems almost designed to appeal to the upper-crust wealthy conservative culture, and has an almost sexual appeal to men. The courses are gorgeous, all curves and swales, the equipment: exquisite, long, and expensive. And the whole sport is about getting a ball in a hole faster tha. But like a lot else in upper-crust wealthy conservative culture – and, I suppose, their love lives- golf’s rules are more about what you can’t do than what you can. And one of those things you cannot ever, ever, do is “improve your lie”; you play your ball from wherever it happened to land, and you can go on with analogies from there.

Now we rejoin Bryson, who hit the ball so deep into the grass that walking around his ball, as he did many, many times, especially behind the ball, beat down the grass behind his swing, and that is something that one cannot do. The referees from the esteemed Royal and Ancient Golf Club at St. Andrews assessed Bryson a two-stroke penalty, sending Bryson into a comprehensive, Def-Con Four meltdown.

And so what does any self-respecting athlete now have to do in such a position while having Trump in his contacts? You guessed it. Mid-temper tantrum, DeChambeau threatened to call Trump. From The Telegraph:

Bryson DeChambeau warned officials at The Open that he was ready to call President Trump in the tense stand-off that saw the American hit with a two-shot penalty for “inadvertently improving his lie”.

Having already stomped all over the rules of golf and “life,” Bryson then did what his hero would do in just such a situation: threaten to quit.

At one stage he told Moir, “I just won’t play tomorrow”. That reaction was widely pilloried in a saga that overshadowed the on-course action and which inspired criticisms from fellow players, most notably McIlroy who accused him of “holding the Open hostage” and being “performative”.

Sounds like our guy, and no, we don’t mean Bryson, who – again, tried this trick before he checked the titanium-strengthened maxim “Only threaten corruption with an already corrupt organization,” – kind of like only having an affair with someone who has as much to lose as you, indeed a lot like that maxim. And while there are a lot of corrupt organizations, especially in sports, an entity that goes by the moniker “The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews” wasn’t likely to be one.

Normally, one might have to give Bryson credit for having not, actually, called Trump mid-round, something at which both Tiger and the USMNT failed. But upon making the threats? Man, go all in on it; that’s not something to “halfway.” Alas, even Bryson will probably admit that he’s no Tiger Woods.

So where does that leave us? Nowhere. Nowhere we don’t know we already inhabit, a world in which corruption – which always existed sub rosa- now not only lives above the surface, it’s all but de facto accepted as “likely to work,” if it involves Trump and… if it involves an organization as corrupt as him. Perhaps the only thing “new” in all this is the sheer pettiness of it. It used to be someone had to offer something as consequential as a new semiconductor plant, or 120,000 acres now open to drilling, or something “big” enough to bother the president – nowadays? It’s some hack, hacking his way through bushes in Scotland. Or something called a “red card,” pulled by a guy in disturbingly tight black shorts. Or just your biannual Tiger Woods’ vehicle roll.

And you thought presidential corruption was limited to obstructing investigations into sex trafficking and the appearance of paying for pardons… get in the game, just don’t cheat. But if you must cheat, make sure it’s only on bigger cheaters – and that advice covers a lot more ground than just Trump corruption.

Jason Miciak is a Rawstory Columnist, former editor of Occupy Democrats, an author, political consultant, attorney, and single parent girldad. Please follow on Bluesky, and he can be reached at [email protected]. He also reads and appreciates the comments.

Support the site with a subscription today and see no more ads!

Go Ad-free Now!