Donald Trump paid a pre-Thanksgiving Wednesday visit to his Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Nov. 22 to play golf. The visit marked the 77th time the 45th President has visited one of his 17 golf clubs (and, for most of them, presumably played some golf) since becoming President on Jan. 20, 2017. He played one round of golf away from his clubs, doing so with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and Japanese star pro Hideki Matsuyama.
According to pool reports, Trump arrived to the club around 9:25 a.m. after the Trump administration's spokespeople indicated Trump would be engaged in a full day of meetings and phone calls. Either that wasn't true, or Trump changed his mind after going on a morning tweetstorm targeting LaVar Ball, whose son LiAngelo was one of three UCLA basketball players arrested, detained and then released in China after intercession from Trump.
Will be having meetings and working the phones from the Winter White House in Florida (Mar-a-Lago). Stock Market hit new Record High yesterday - $5.5 trillion gain since E. Many companies coming back to the U.S. Military building up and getting very strong.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2017
Shot/chaser, WH pool report edition pic.twitter.com/ALUzY3EqQQ
— Rebecca Berg (@rebeccagberg) November 22, 2017
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So far, Trump has been on the golf course or his clubs during some portion of the day for 26.2 percent of his presidency. With 10 weekends between now and the end of 2017, it's conceivable Trump could fit in 100 days at his golf properties before year-end.
The Trump Administration, per policy, does not acknowledge that Trump is playing even a hole of golf, much less an 18-hole round. However, if he's going to the golf club for about 4-5 hours, you can be pretty sure he's playing golf. Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden has asked the White House to provide the names of Trump's golf partners, as well for his clubs to provide visitor logs to get a sense of when Trump has played golf and with whom.
The President is certainly entitled to some leisure time, and golf has been an outlet for most Commanders-in-Chief dating back to the early 20th century. However, the reluctance to even acknowledge that this President plays golf conflicts with his almost relentless criticism of his predecessor, Barack Obama, who played an estimated 333 rounds of golf as President.
