- Donald Trump loves golf and has been known to talk up his game.
- But his recent claims could place him as one of the top amateur golfers in the US.
Donald Trump is one of the greatest living amateur golfers — at least, according to himself.
In an interview with golf YouTuber Travis Miller published Tuesday, the former president made a few claims about his game that have many in the golf world raising their eyebrows.
"I believe I'm a better player now than I was 25 years ago," Trump said. "I just won the club championship in Palm Beach where we have 21 scratch players. I won the seniors, and I played so well in the seniors that I said, 'Might as well play in the regular.' And I beat kids that are very good players."
Outside the golfing world, Trump's impressive claim largely went unnoticed. Many may not know what a "scratch player" is, and Trump is known for reaching for hyperbole, whether behind the podium or on the fairway.
In response to a media inquiry from Business Insider, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung suggested that anyone who doubts the former president's golfing skills is "jealous."
Here are a few analogies to help unpack Trump's claims.
The Steph Curry of golf?
Trump claims that, at the age of 78, he easily beats highly skilled players 55 to 65 years or older in contests hosted at his club, so he needs to compete with younger players who are also highly skilled.
A "scratch" golfer means a player gets the ball inside the tee within or under the set number of strokes dictated by the golf course. For example, an 18-hole course with a par 72 means a player should complete the course within or under 72 strokes.
There's some more technicality to it when factoring in a player's "handicap," which Trump also claims is "so low." Still, according to sports experts, the former president essentially says he's good — really good — maybe even impossibly good.
"Saying it is hard to believe, it's an understatement," Val Martinez, who founded an online sports betting community for women, told BI. "If it were true, this would mean that Donald Trump is one of the best amateur golfers in the country."
"It's like claiming you can out-dribble Steph Curry and outshoot LeBron James all in the same game," Martinez said.
She offered another analogy: "It's similar to saying you can routinely dunk from the free-throw line with the same success rate as Michael Jordan."
Bryant Sharifi, the head performance coach at Perform for Golf in San Francisco, agreed.
"At 78 years old, it's like — you could just come into a three-point shooting contest and beat a bunch of skilled players," Sharifi added.
"That's a very, very impressive feat to do," Sharifi said of Trump's claim.
A champion in his own right
To be fair, this is not to say the former president is an abysmal golfer. He certainly plays a lot of it.
In a YouTube video that was filmed before his assassination attempt, Trump and LIV Golf pro Bryson DeChambeau attempted to "break 50" or complete an 18-hole course in under 50 strokes — an incredibly challenging task.
The pair couldn't accomplish the feat, but DeChambeau was nonetheless impressed.
"His driver swing is the most repeatable thing I have ever seen," DeChambeau told Golf.com. "I wish mine was that repeatable. Really, I do."
Mark Broadie, a mathematician at Columbia Business School who has written a book on golf and has been billed as "The Golf Guru," told BI in an email that, judging by the video, Trump is a decent player.
"From this, it looks like Trump is a good golfer and could have been a 5 handicap some years ago," Broadie said, which means Trump's average score from his previous rounds of golf could have been five strokes over par.
A 2019 study from the United States Golf Association and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews found that a golfer with a handicap of less than six would drive the ball at an average distance of about 240 yards. That's far.
"But if (Trump) drives the ball 190 or 200 yards max (as indicated by some shots in the Bryson video), he would have little chance against a male scratch golfer playing from the same tees," Broadie added in the email.
Sportswriter Rick Reilly, who played golf with Trump and wrote a book in 2019 that details how the former president has consistently cheated at the game, was less generous on social media.
"Yes. Any half-decent player could crush him w/ just one thing: A rules official," Reilly wrote on X, responding to a video of Trump claiming to beat 21 scratch players.
In another post, he added, "FYI, Trump used to display his golf game in public. He'd play in NBC's Tahoe celeb tourney + all 3 times he proved himself to be wildly … average."
Reilly couldn't be reached for comment.
Wilmington Star-News reported in 2004 that Trump finished 56th out of 80 players for the American Century Championship hosted in South Lake Tahoe. According to the American Century Championship, Trump finished 62nd place in 2006.