Minnesota Golf Association 4-ball tournament participants at Eagle Creek Golf Course.
Even if you don’t play golf, it’s worthwhile to know something about it. Playing golf is something that our president seems to spend a lot of time doing, so that must mean it’s important, or at least significant, right?
According to two websites, the president plays a lot of golf, never mind an on-again-off-again war with Iran, a tariff tax on American consumers, inflation, a broken federal government, national debt increase, immigration, assault on democracy and the rule of law, or climate change. With all those big concerns, one must play a lot of golf to relax.
The Donald Trump Golf Tracker website claims to provide “A running account of every confirmed round President Trump has played since his second inauguration — and what the pattern reveals.” The tracker says there have been 128 confirmed golf outings since Jan. 20, 2025, or about one day of golf in every 4.5 days.
According to news reports American taxpayers shelled out more than $151 million for golf trips during his first term. In the second term estimates exceeded $100 million by March of this year. The roundtrips from Washington to Mara Lago on Air Force One reportedly cost more than $1 million.
The Trump Golf Tracker website lists Trump’s tweets from the past criticizing President Obama’s golf excursions, yet today the administration is silent about the president’s golf activity. “Donald Trump regularly assailed President Barack Obama for playing golf, then spent the first weekends of his own presidency doing just that,” reported Politico in 2017.
Golf bag(gage)
While I have played golf a few times, it never took hold, despite some golf legacy in the family. When he was just 18, in 1931 my future father shot the first hole-in-one off the first tee at the local golf course. Bruce Fossum, a cousin of my mother, wrote an excellent book about it, Golf Made Easier… Not Easy. Fossum was a legendary golf coach at Michigan State, and any golfer would learn from his book.
One reason for my lack of playing golf may be an aversion to some of the reasons why the president plays so much golf. It comes with more political, sociological and economic baggage than do most other sports. At times that has left me feeling like an outsider from business and economic elites.
This occurred again about a year ago while reporting a news story about a new, nearby luxury play-and-stay golf course. Tepetanka is a high-end course with a reported $200,000 membership fee. According to reports all or most of the 18 holes are scheduled to open this month, followed by lodging in 2027. In September 2025 I wrote a story about this for MinnPost. It could be a tale of two golf courses, one on the rise and one that seems to be in decline.
About 15 miles to the south, Eagle Creek, a long-time privately-owned course open to the public, has been struggling. Its restaurant, The Oaks, has closed. While the city’s population has grown in recent years, that doesn’t seem to have translated to the golf course. You don’t see many Latinos or East Africans playing golf, at least in this community.
Golf activity at Eagle Creek this past week may be an exception. It hosted the Minnesota Golf Association’s 4-ball championship (Two, two-person teams, each playing their own ball, and recording the lowest score of each team). Driving by, I was surprised to see the golf course populated with scores of golfers – mostly white, middle-class dudes – and MGA tents here and there.
While demographics provide some explanation, could the Tepetanka-Eagle Creek contrast also be a measure of the increase in income disparity? An increase in super rich who can afford a $200k membership destination club, and a declining attendance at a more middle-class club, where local demographic changes play a major role? I hope that all golf courses survive, particularly in large cities. We need all the green space we can get.
In Duluth there is a dispute going on over the former Lester Park Golf Course on the east end of town. Covering 268 acres, the city-owned course closed in 2025 from lack of use and was losing money. The city wants to sell a portion to a developer for housing, which is drawing opposition from neighbors. It’s a great place to walk dogs and enjoy views of Lake Superior.
Outdoors, offline
Whether it’s for making business deals or sports competition, the best thing about golfing is that it gets you outdoors, away from screens and other distractions. The wry view that it’s “a good walk spoiled,” is countered by a recent essay in the Wall Street Journal by Jason Gay, “A miserable golfer’s guide to enjoying miserable golf.” You don’t have to play good golf to enjoy golf, he says.
I have spent hundreds of hours on Eagle Creek Golf Course; however, I have never played golf there. I look forward to spending more time there, still not playing golf. For many years our local cross country ski club has groomed ski trails along the fairways and the rough. We greatly appreciate having the golf course allow cross-country ski trails, as long as we stay off the greens.
Someday I may actually play a round at Eagle Creek. I’d have to rent clubs, because we no longer have another part of our family’s golf legacy. I actually played a round using my father-in-law’s old set of 1930s vintage Wilson clubs, in a leather bag with a wood-handled Calamity Jane putter. The old set drew some bemused looks from my business team golf partners, reflecting a common purpose of golf – bonding and networking. We later sold the set to a collector friend, so it’s in a good home.
