During his rise to power, Donald Trump regularly cited how his prowess on the golf course reflected how “I almost never lose” in life.
“I always win,” he told The Washington Post in 2015. “I win at golf. I’m a club champion many times at different clubs. I win at golf. I can sink the three-footer on the 18th hole when others can’t. My whole life is about winning. I don’t lose often.”
Now, after years of whispers casting doubt on the US president’s official handicap of 2.8, new video evidence supports suggestions that he may indeed be cutting corners.
Two clips purporting to show Trump playing at his treasured Scottish course, Turnberry, before announcing a trade deal with the EU, have prompted cheating allegations. One verified video, published by the respected international news agency Reuters, shows Trump inexplicably appearing to adjust the position of his ball on the fairway with his club. “I can’t believe we’ve just watched the man cheating at f***ing golf,” an eyewitness is heard saying in the background.
In another clip to surface on social media – prompting immediate allegations that it may be fake – a caddie is also seen dropping Trump’s ball in an ideal position.
The second video appears to have been taken from inside a building showing Trump rolling up in a cart left of the fairway, with a bunker in front of him and rough to his left. As two caddies walked by, the camera captured one of them stopping, bending down slightly, and appearing to drop a ball in front of Trump
The White House has yet to comment on the veracity of the footage but viewers immediately concluded it was proof of Trump cheating.
Allegations of Trump bending the rules in golf stretch back years. Most recently, Samuel L Jackson, the Hollywood actor, made allegations after being asked whether he was better at golf than Trump. “Oh, I am, for sure,” he said. “I don’t cheat.” Another actor, Anthony Anderson, told Late Night With Seth Meyers in 2016: “Trump is a great golfer. I’m not going to say Trump cheats. His caddie cheats for him.”
Asked whether he saw Trump cheat with his own eyes, Anderson replied: “Oh yes, several times. Several times.”
Further claims, also denied by Trump, were also raised in a book, Commander in Cheat, by Rick Reilly. “At Winged Foot, where Trump is a member, the caddies got so used to seeing him kick his ball back on to the fairway they came up with a nickname for him: Pele,” Reilly writes in the book.
Telegraph Sport has spoken to one leading golf agent, who claims that on the first tee, Trump likes to quote the late professional wrestler Eddie Guerrero: “I cheat in business, I cheat in love, I cheat in golf.”
“He laughs when he says it and is clearly quite proud of it,” the source said.
As Andersen pointed out, he is also well known for getting his caddies on side, invariably employing the same bagmen at his different venues. Suzann Pettersen, the former Europe Solheim Cup captain, played with Trump in his first term.
“He cheats like hell… so I don’t quite know how he is in business,” she said. “They say that if you cheat at golf, you cheat at business. I’m pretty sure he pays his caddie well, since no matter how far into the woods he hits the ball, it’s in the middle of the fairway when we get there.”
Trump boasts that he has won more than 20 different club championships and, in this sense, these clips are ultimately harmless because he is not playing in official competition while on this trip to the UK. But it will still upset the sport at large.
When the footage went viral, Reilly, who says he has known Trump for more than 30 years and has played with him on several occasions, provided a fine line in deadpan humour, posting on X: “Well I’m just personally very disappointed in him.”