'The Saudis are friends of mine': Donald Trump tees up for LIV Golf - so, how did he play?
Donald Trump kept Dustin Johnson waiting on the first tee and then, one commendably straight drive later, the former President told the assembled media that he would keep America’s voters waiting a little longer as well. And then he managed to offend protest groups representing victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Trump was playing at the pro-am before the latest tournament from LIV Golf, the Saudi-funded breakaway tour that has signed up some of the world's best golfers.
The event is being hosted at Trump National Bedminster, the course owned by the former president (as ever with this unashamed self-publicist, the clue is in the title) so perhaps he could be forgiven for turning up at 10.09 for a 10am tee-time, although he could hardly blame the crowds, as none are allowed into LIV Golf Series events before matchday. “If it was anybody else...” Johnson said, swishing his club, laughing but evidently unimpressed.
And then he arrived, in a golf buggy that — according to a book focusing on Trump’s golf game, Commander in Cheat — is souped-up to be twice as fast as any other at the club. Also on the tee were Greg Norman - the supremo of the Saudi rebel circuit - Bryson DeChambeau and Eric Trump, the third-oldest child and the man in charge of the Trump golf portfolio that also includes Trump Turnberry and Trump Doral (the Miami resort that will host LIV’s grand finale in October).
At tee-side were daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner with their three children. The pair were married here in 2009 and last week, Ivanka’s mother, Ivana, was buried here. So, the stage was set with what could be charitably described as an eclectic cast list. Except, it was about to get even more interesting.
Up stepped Yasir al-Rumayyan, the head of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund which is bankrolling LIV and who is also the chairman of Newcastle United.
Affinity Partners, the investment firm Kushner set up after Trump was voted out last year, has received $2 billion from PIF. The backing was seen as payback for the Trump Administration’s softly-softly approach to the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a US citizen, in 2018.
“May he did, maybe he didn't,” was Trump’s response after the CIA concluded that Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, Saudi Arabia's crown prince, was culpable in Khashoggi’s killing. Trump later bragged of selling more than $100 million in arms to Saudi. Now the New York Times insists that this so-called “Axis of Eagle” tie-up between LIV Golf and Trump is not simply Trump seeking revenge on the golfing establishment for declining to stage the male majors on his fairways, but also “a bid for future favour if Trump seeks and wins another presidential term in 2024”.
Which brings us to what happened next in this surreal scenario. The 76-year-old nailed that opening tee-shot, before turning to his family and grandchildren and saying “well, I’m glad that’s over with”. Cue hilarity all round. Then, after talking to Ivanka and Kushner and cuddling the young ones, he turned to a journalist who dared to ask, “Mr President, are you planning to announce soon?”
“Where you from?” Trump inquired. “The Wall Street Journal,” came the reply. “Ah, you just did a beautiful front page on me, the first in five years, tell them I appreciate it,” Trump said. So will he run to be the Republican’s nominee? ‘You’re going to be so happy,” Trump said. “We’ll let you know pretty soon.”
At the same time, Eric’s caddie was striding off down the fairway and it was impossible to miss the words “Trump for 2024” emblazoned on the bag. All this happened on the first. “Blink and you’ll miss it,” as the LIV slogan goes.
Trump proceeded to knock his second on the green on the 514-yard opener and take nearest-the-pin honours off DeChambeau and Johnson, something of an achievement considering the fact tha the also played off the back tees, even if this was greensome fourball.
Yasir - or HE, as in His Excellency - might have felt a tad disrespected when Trump marched off the teebox before he had played his shot, but then this was a five-ball and they do not officially exist in the game’s rulebook. Not that Trump is an avid student of that weighty tome, as he showed by continually giving himself tiddlers.
Etiquette is not his strong point, either. On the second, Trump drove his buggy - complete with Presidential seal on the seat - in front of the green just as HE was about to play and Johnson had to bellow at him to move. And on the chaos went. Trump is a decent golfer, not as good he would like to believe, but certainly nowhere near as bad as his opponents would love to believe.
The fans will arrive here on Friday, but so too will the 9/11 protestors, the family of the victims and survivors who are disgusted that a Saudi-financed tournament is taking place on a former President’s course just 50 miles from Ground Zero.
As if they needed any more reason to demonstrate, Trump presented it anyway as he set about basically doubting declassified FBI reports that linked the Saudi government with the attacks that killed nearly 3,000. Of the 19 hijackers, 15 were from Saudi Arabia and the FBI last year released a memo highlighting “significant logistic support” for two of the hijackers.
“Nobody’s gotten to the bottom of 9/11, unfortunately,” Trump said. “They should have, as to the maniacs that did that horrible thing, to our city, to our country, to the world. But I can tell you that there are a lot of really great people out here today. And we’re gonna have a lot of fun.
“I've known these people for a long time in Saudi Arabia and they're friends of mine. What they're doing for golf is so great.”
