A former PGA star has revealed what happened when he saw US President Donald Trump play golf amid claims he cheats during his excursions.
Trump is a golf fanatic and owns 16 different courses around the world. Earlier this month, the Huffington Post crunched data to reveal the staggering amount that his golf exploits had cost US taxpayers an enormous amount of money since was inaugurated as president for the second time.
While Trump is a regular golfer, there are a flurry of claims which say he is guilty of cheating and bending the rules when playing.
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It's said that he once 'won' a 2023 tournament even though he missed half of it due to attending the funeral of one of his supporters, 600 miles away.
Reportedly asking for his score from Thursday to count for his first round score, Trump wrote on Truth Social that it was a "a great honour to have won the Senior Club Championship at Trump International Golf Club".
Meanwhile, former longtime Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly detailed Trump's antics in his 2019 book Commander in Cheat and in an appearance on Deadline White House to promote it, said Trump "has to win and he will do anything to cheat" having spent time playing with him.
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However, John Nieporte has had a very different seeing Trump play in the flesh. Nieporte, who played two events on the PGA tour in 2017 and 2018, raved about the 78-year-old's golfing abilities and recalled an impressive feat he witnessed.
"At our club championship in March, I watched President Trump hit a perfect 210-yard four iron to within 10 feet of the hole," Nieporte, the head golf pro at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, said at the Republican National Convention in July 2024.
"He needed to sink that putt to win. Do you think he sunk it? You better believe he sunk that putt."
UFC fighter hails Trump's golf abilities
Trump has regularly bigged up his golf swing but there is another witness account of his prowess. After Trump was cageside to see his win over Val Woodburn, UFC fighter Bo Nickal was invited to play a round with Trump along with NFL legends Lawrence "LT" Taylor and Ottis "OJ" Anderson.
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And the 29-year-old was stunned by precise Trump was on the fairway as well as how clutch he could be when the stakes were raised.
"Him and LT were playing for a thousand bucks a hole or something. Trump, I golfed with him; the dude's an amazing golfer," Nickal said during an appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast.
"I couldn't believe it, how good he was. Every fairway, right down the middle, hit every green, making all his puts. So he won the first nine pretty easy, and then the last nine, it was going into the 18th hole, him and LT were tied or something.
"It was like it all came down to this last hole, and they both hit great drives, and LT hit like a good approach shot, and Trump gets up there. He's probably 150 yards from the green, and he sets up, just stripes it straight at the pin. Ball's in the middle of the arc, not even coming down, he turns around, doesn't even watch it land, walks right back to the cart, sits down.
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"And uh, the guy was like, 'Nice shot Mr. President,' and I was like, 'Damn, that was clutch,' and he looks at me, he goes, 'Don't you want your president to be clutch?' And I was like, 'For sure, man,' and he hit it two feet from the pin and tapped it in, and I was like 'geez'. Just a cool dude, though. It was funny."
Topics: Golf
Josh Lawless