You might as well take a few minutes to see where your tax dollars are going this weekend. The titular leader of the free world is off doing his thing this weekend and if an enemy attacks, hey, call J.D. or Pete or somebody. Don’t bug Donald. He’s busy. This is something like his 27th championship win (at his own club, I’m sure you’re impressed.) And you will definitely be moved (probably to hysterical laughter) when you see his actual *game.* Full disclosure: I do not golf. I took two lessons once, on two Saturdays, and decided that the game wasn’t for me. I preferred bouncing around chasing a tennis ball, and now with a titanium hip I can’t do impact sports at all. But I did know a couple, where he golfed and she videoed his game, and it didn’t look like this — except on a really bad day.
The Club Champion pic.twitter.com/yZjZOE7cLE
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) March 16, 2025
I think this is now the 27th Club Championship Trump has allegedly won at his courses, by my count. pic.twitter.com/msA0IYXroy
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) March 16, 2025
“Shanking” is hitting the ball with the “hosel” of the club. The hosel is the “socket in the club head where the shaft is inserted.” So the hosel is not the head, and if you hit the ball with the hosel then the ball goes crazy, as you saw. Again, I’m not a golfer, but Trump has been one for 65 some years, we are given to know. So how you can be making rookie mistakes like this after a literal lifetime at a sport, I know not. But I know there are some golfers here, so perhaps you will enlighten us.
The only thing I know for an absolute fact is that in talking to older body builders, equestrians, tennis players, ice skaters, you name the sport, if you’ve been doing it your entire life you generally get good at it. I would really like to know if Trump could win a championship anyplace other than his own club, wouldn’t you?
Only a narcissist could be happy winning after he’s cheated. That’s our POTUS, a vain and distasteful man-child.
— Stephen Mickulas (@phistert) March 16, 2025
Commander In Cheat by Rick Reilly is the book under discussion. Trump’s golf life is as screwy as his political life and then some.
Donald’s Trump’s boast about winning 18 club championships is a lie that’s so over-the-top Crazytown it loses all credibility among golfers the second it’s out of his mouth. To double check, I called the only guy who could come close: George “Buddy” Marucci, of Philadelphia. Like Trump, Marucci belongs to more clubs than you can fit in your bag. Like Trump, he’s in the right age bracket, at six years younger than Trump. Like Trump, he’s got all the money he needs to play as many club championships as he can fly to. Unlike Trump, he’s as fine a golfing businessman as you can find. Marucci took 19-year-old Tiger Woods – 24 years his junior – to the last hole of the 1995 US Amateur before finally losing.
So, Buddy Marucci, do YOU have 18 club championships?
“Ha!” he laughed. “No way. I have a few, but nowhere near that many. It’s hard to win a club championship. I might have eight. Tops.”
This is a guy who’s been breaking par for the past 45 years. He belongs to nearly every creamy course in the world – Winged Foot, Seminole, Pine Valley, Cypress Point. If it’s on a top 10 in the world list, Marucci probably has a locker there.
When Trump told Gary Player he’d won 18 championships, Player scoffed. “I told him that if anyone beats him, he kicks them out. So, he had to win.”
Was Trump’s name on the wall of any clubs he didn’t own? Nope. Was it on the walls at Trump Washington in Virginia, a course that was already up and running when he bought it? Nope. Or Trump Jupiter, which was a Ritz Carlton course when he bought it? Nope. Was it on the wall at any of his own courses he’d opened? Oh, yes.
Trump International in West Palm Beach, Florida, has a plaque on the wall that lists all the men who’ve won the men’s club championship. Trump appears three times: 1999, 2001, and 2009. But hold on. The course wasn’t even open in 1999. Turns out, then White House spokesperson Hope Hicks admitted to the Washington Post, Trump played in a “soft opening” round on 1 November of that year with “a group of the early members,” and declared it the club championship.
On 17 March 17 2013, Trump tweeted he’d won the club championship again at Trump International. But the plaque for that year lists the winner as “Tom Roush.” The catch? It wasn’t really the club championship at all. Trump won the “Super Seniors Club Championship,” which at most clubs is reserved for players 60 and older. Something to be proud of, sure, but not within a Super Walmart of beating the best young players in the club. The difference between “Club Champion” and “Super Senior Club Champion” is the difference between Vanna White and Betty White.
“I remember Melania used to ask us ‘What is this ‘Super Seniors’?’” recalls former Trump Westchester exec Ian Gillule. “And Mr Trump would say, ‘Oh, Super Seniors is better than just a regular club championship, honey.’ He was saying it tongue in cheek but she didn’t know the difference.”
No, curiosity is not a trait that Melania has more than any of the other members of this political Addams Family. They’re all pretty much dead wood from the neck up. And they’re fine with that. They just want to look good and spend money. To them that’s the nth degree of human achievement, when in fact it’s no achievement at all if you happen to be born with the right genes or inherit a fortune. Or even be born with the wrong genes and still inherit the fortune. There’s a lot of sheer wizardry that plastic surgeons can achieve, just ask Ivanka.
So tonight’s another big night of celebration of the wonder of Trump’s athletic prowess. And then tomorrow (or whenever he gets around to it) he’ll waddle into the Oval Office and do his next photo op.
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It’s embarrassing as hell to hit a shank. Any of us who’ve golfed have done it. Even the very best ever have hit a shank. If you’re lucky you can laugh with everyone who saw it happen and forget about it. However, some aren’t able to do so and a case the shanks can creep into their thoughts and then they’re in trouble. Like the “yips” (a putting issue) they can overwhelm a golfer. Of course if you’re Trump and ONLY play at your own clubs and no one dares call you out for cheating then shanks and yips don’t matter. Just lie about your score and that’s that.
It’s the night of the final round of The Players, one of golf’s premier events. It’s often been said it should be the fifth major because it it composed only of PGA tour players (the top ones) and is always the strongest, deepest field in golf. Used to be I’d have been glued to the TV but I have no clue who won. I watched a bit of coverage yesterday, then clicked on a story online where a rising LPGA star had he wedding at Mar A Lago with Trump of course around. And a couple of LPGA stars I admired were there and as with so many male golfers I’ve now lost all respect for them too.
This is so surprising.
You’re saving that a guy that cheats at school, cheats at collage, cheats in business, cheats his suppliers, cheats charities, cheats his wives, cheats his children, cheats the law, cheats his taxes, cheats in politics, cheats in elections and cheats himself …
-cheats at golf?
Go figure?
I read somewhere that guys who caddied for him nicknamed him “Pele”” (a famous soccer player) because he is notorious for pushing the ball in with his foot and not counting the stroke.
If someone believes this bs, I have two bridges to sell them.