Donald Trump made an unexpected March 18 visit to his Trump National Golf Club in Washington, D.C., in Sterling, Va., after aides realized the President needed some time out of The White House and away from cable television news. The visit marked the 101st 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. This is his 102nd visit to any golf course as President.
Trump arrived at the Northern Virginia golf club at 10:45 a.m., per pool reports. Typically, when Trump plans to play golf, he arrives around 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. However, Maggie Haberman of the New York Times suggested this impromptu round may have to do with the reaction to the firing of former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe two days shy of his retirement following a quick reaction from Attorney General Jeff Sessions to a report from the Department of Justice's independent Inspector General concerning McCabe's actions in the wake of the handling of the 2016 investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server during her time as Secretary of State in the Obama Administration.
Aides have decided to whisk Trump to a golf course today.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 18, 2018
RELATED: Why how often Trump plays golf matters
The White House doesn't typically acknowledge Trump was even playing golf. That is commonplace policy, particularly when Trump isn't playing with celebrities or pro golfers or doesn't have something to flaunt.
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All but one round of golf has been at his clubs, playing once in Japan in Nov. 2017 with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and Japanese star pro Hideki Matsuyama.
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. He ended 2017 with 91 golf course visits, though it's unlikely he'll reach 100 in his first year in office, which concludes on Jan. 20, 2018 at 11:59 p.m.
The Trump Administration, per typical 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.
