US President Donald Trump has claimed to have won yet another golf tournament: this time, the club championship at one of his own courses, the Jim Fazio-designed Trump International in West Palm Beach. 

Trump’s love of golf is well known. His company, Trump Golf, is responsible for 18 of the finest golfing properties in the world, and his relationship with two-time major winner Bryson DeChambeau is well-documented, with DeChambeau joining the president at a victory rally after the 2024 US election. 

But is the 78-year-old as good a golfer as he says he is?

Trump makes grandiose claims about his golfing ability all the time. In August 2023, he claimed that he had won the senior club championship at Trump National Bedminster with a 67, a score that only three of the world’s best players beat just weeks prior at the LIV Golf tournament hosted at the same course. For those not fluent in golf, this score is the number of strokes a player needs to take to get through 18 holes.

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The president has claimed his handicap is as low as a 2.5 — and the question of his handicap led to possibly one of the most obscure debates in US political history when he and his opponent, then president Joe Biden, challenged each other to a golf match. Biden — whose performance in that debate would lead one to question whether he can cogently recall his own name, let alone a golf score — claimed his handicap was a six. (Again, for those not versed in the sport, a handicap is a simple way of summarising a player’s ability. The lower number the better.)

American sportswriter and author of Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump Rick Reilly wrote in The Washington Post that “if Biden is a six handicap, elephants can Hula Hoop. And if Trump is a 2.5, they can do it on top of flagpoles.”

Of Trump’s lies about his ability, Reilly said in his book: “Trump doesn’t just cheat at golf. He throws it, boots it, and moves it. He lies about his lies. He fudges and foozles and fluffs.”

In July last year, Trump joined DeChambeau (who, when he’s not a professional golfer, is a golf YouTuber) at Trump Bedminster in an attempt to “break 50” from the front tees of the course — that is, playing together and attempting to go 23 under par. In this video there are some hints as to how far Trump hits the golf ball. Trump took an 8-iron for the 101 metre-long, par three second hole — Arccos data from 2024 shows that most golfers of Trump’s alleged ability hit a ball with their 8-iron an average of 132 metres. To be fair to President Trump, distance isn’t everything — this correspondent is a 24 handicap and hits an 8-iron about 135 metres.

Further to this, Trump’s golf bag gives away other hints about his actual ability — Trump carries a 7-wood and even a 9-wood, usually the preserve of golfers with significantly slower swings that need help from the club to get the ball in the air, rather than high-ability golfers with the ability to shape the trajectory of their shots at will. 

When it comes to the putting green, Trump is plainly uncomfortable, despite his Scotty Cameron putter that costs a solid $800 in Australia. He has an unusual stroke, but still manages some success, suggesting he may have found his own, very unique groove. 

While Trump is in fact quite mobile for someone of his age, and he plainly loves the game, there is a litany of circumstantial evidence to suggest Trump’s actual ability is significantly lower than he suggests. 

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