March 29, 2017--"Fore!"

Talk about alternative facts.

This time we're talking about golf but not about a situation where someone cheats on the course or about his score. Like what Bill Clinton used to do while duffing--assuming that because he was Commander in Chief, the most powerful man in the world, he could give himself Mulligans. For the non- aficionados, a Mulligan is a no-penalty extra shot after hitting one into the rough or lake. Some thought this was a metaphor about Clinton's character.

No, we're talking now about whether or not Donald Trump played any golf at all while weekending recently at Mar-a-Lago.

White House records show he spent seven hours at his own course, the Trump International Golf Club, but his spokespeople claimed he wasn't there to play. On the way back to Washington on Sunday, on Air Force One, when asked about his golf game, Trump fibbed, claiming that he played "very little."

This golf business is a very delicate matter.

Trump on the stump during the campaign frequently mocked Barak Obama's golfing, claiming that he was always on the golf course and off the case while America was going down the drain. Thus the need to make America Great Again.

Two months into his own presidency, with America in reality going down the drain, one can only imagine how much effort is being expended to obscure the truth about Trump's recreating. Especially  his golfing.

Though Barack Obama may have been obsessed with golf and took every opportunity to get in a round, his people never hid the fact that he was on the course and not at meetings. Most times they even told reporters who he was playing with.

Not Trump. Not only don't we know who was in his foursome but we don't know for certain if he played even though he was spotted at his club dressed in golf attire and wearing a golf glove. When pressed about his golfing he points out that he is not just having fun on the links but working while hitting slices into the woods. Like when he played a round with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

But talking about golf makes him uneasy because of how he savaged Obama for his golfing.

"I'm going to be working for you," he said last year at a rally in Virginia, "I'm not going to have time to go play golf."

But he is clearly making time for golf. As of March 25th, according to Golf News Net, he has already played 12 rounds while during the first two months of his presidency Obama played exactly zero times.

The presidency is an extraordinarily stressful job even for someone like Donald Trump who doesn't appear to be fully engaged. Even he deserves and needs some down time. Fair enough.

But there are other issues regarding his frequent trips to Palm Beach--for example, how much his weekending in Florida costs taxpayers.

It is estimated that each visit to Mar-a-Lago costs us $3.0 million. For Air Force One; the lodging, care, and feeding of Secret Service agents; reimbursements for Palm Beach police and first responders; and all the incidentals associated with a president out of the pocket and on the move.

Having already made five trips to Mar-a-Lago, this means he has run up $15 million in costs. His burn rate is such that he recently requested an additional $60 million to cover expenses projected for the rest of the fiscal year. This would offset the cost of his wife and son remaining behind in New York City (who can blame them), security for his globetrotting sons, and frequent getaways to Florida.

The Office of Management and Budget turned him down since they are in the middle of gutting programs including Meals On Wheels and are concerned about the appearance of a double standard--one for billionaire Trump, another for the rest of us.

On the other hand, after the clamor about his opulent lifestyle abates, expect to see the double standard at work.

Trump In the Rough

April 21, 2014--Fore!

Not only is Tiger Woods sitting out much of the golfing season but so are at least 5.0 million more. Those, the New York Times reports, who have stopped playing during the last decade.

And this has the golfing industry worried--golf courses and country clubs are suffering and so are the TV networks that broadcast golf: fewer players translates into smaller audiences which in turn translates into fewer advertising dollars. And that constitutes a big problem.

The networks are left to hope that Tiger miraculously returns to form (when he is doing well and is part of the final twosome during a tournament ratings double); but since golf courses have no equivalent silver bullet, many are turning to gimmicks to attract a younger population of duffers.

A favorite gimmick is to enlarge the physical hole form the current 4.25 inches to 15 inches, the size of a large pizza. Top-10 golfer Sergio Garcia likes the hole this size. Considering he has never come close to winning a Major, this could be considered special pleading or his endorsement the result of a handsome honorarium.

Sand traps are a special agony for the average golfer. Though the likes of Phil Michelson blast out of them without trouble, folks who hack their way around country clubs have been knows to take four or five strokes to extract themselves from a bunker and to break their sand wedges in frustration. So, a new rule would allow golfers to reach down, pick up their ball, and toss it onto the green. At least twice a round.

It's also OK on these souped-up courses to use juiced golf balls and clubs to make shots go further with less effort or skill.

If you remember when Bill Clinton was the First Duffer you recall he wasn't much good as a player and so, as Commander-in-Chief, he gave himself numerous mulligans--do over shots. If he hit his drive in the pond (he was especially adept at that), he'd allow himself a second or third attempt. All strictly against the PGA rules. But under the new rules being proposed to reattract golfers, especially younger ones, mulligans would be permitted and routine as would allowing golfers to place every shot on a tee, not just when driving.

TaylorMade-Adidas Golf in the process of redesigning 100 courses to make them more kid friendly because, as reported in the New York Times, youngsters are quitting the game after a few rounds because it's "too hard" to play courses as they are currently designed and with existing rules.

Parents are apparently upset that their little-ones are being frustrated. God forbid that any child should experience any frustration about anything. Including things that are hard to do. Which is half the point of golf--to try to excel at something difficult and learn to live with inevitable frustration and occasional bursts of excellence.

By the way, Sergio played in a tournament on a nine-hole nouveau course with anchovy-pizza-sized holes and shot a six under par. In truth, not that impressive.