Trump Reports Big Spike in Golf Income After Leaving Presidency
During his time as president, Donald Trump and golf were virtually inseparable. He spent most weekends at resorts that he owned across the country, and played an estimated 240 rounds of golf, largely at his courses in Florida and New Jersey.
In the years since, the sport has been an especially lucrative source of income for the former president. According to a Sportico analysis of a recent Federal Election Commission disclosure, Trump reported earning as much as $555 million from his golf portfolio between January 2022 and April 14, 2023. That tally accounts for roughly half of the $1.2 billion in income he specified as having received during that time.
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By comparison, Trump claimed earning $237 million from his courses in the calendar year of 2020, and $224 million in 2018.
Trump’s personal assets include ownership, management or licensing interests in 17 golf courses (one currently under construction) in five different countries. In the past few years, Trump’s courses have hosted a handful of Saudi-backed LIV Golf events, and lost opportunities to host PGA Tour events or British Opens. The golf industry has also seen a resurgence spurred by the pandemic—operating revenues for golf clubs spiked between 12% and 18% in 2021, according to the Club Management Association of America—and Trump’s leaving the Oval Office had, at least temporarily, made his public image less omnipresent. Whatever the reasons, the sport appears to have been much more lucrative for Trump in the past few years.
Trump’s newest financial reporting, which was obtained from the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, covers asset valuations and income, transactions, debt, gifts and travel reimbursements. The filings are required of both federal officeholders and candidates, which is why Trump, now running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is once again required to submit updated numbers.
The filings have discrepant time periods because the requirements vary by position—while in office, OGE required that Trump annually report his income over the prior calendar year, but as a federal candidate, he must tally up both the prior year’s income as well as that for the current year up to the filing date. As a result, it is not possible to calculate the precise increase in his income categories. That said, the data purports to show a clear upward swing in golf-related income—even when inflation is factored in.
For Turnberry ($52 million) and Trump Endeavor 12 LLC, the holding company of Trump National Doral Miami resort ($159 million), Trump reported combined golf- and hotel-related income figures, making it unclear exactly how much was attributed to each.
In any case, it seems evident that golf has been very, very good for the former president, who has seen other much-relied-on income streams decline in the wake of his controversial term in Washington. For a while, it seemed that Trump’s golf interests might pay a similar price, especially in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Days after the ransacking of Congress, the PGA of America voted to terminate its agreement to hold the 2022 PGA Championship at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. (After the Trump Organization sued, the sides later reached a confidential settlement.)
Trump’s latest financial report shows $46.2 million in golf-related earnings from Bedminster from 2022 to April, after it brought in just $17.7 million in 2020 and $15.7 million in 2018.
Just a few weeks after Trump left Washington, the City of New York under then-Mayor Bill de Blasio tried to preempt a 20-year agreement that allowed the Trump Organization to operate its Ferry Point golf course in the Bronx. The city had claimed that Trump’s role in fomenting Jan. 6 had stained his brand and thereby damaged the city’s ability to attract professional tournaments to the course. Last April, however, a New York state court judge ruled the Trump Organization could continue to run Ferry Point.
In his financial disclosure, Trump reported Ferry Point-derived income of $20.1 million over the 16 months since Jan. 2022; the course had netted him a little over $8 million in 2020.
A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Golf course ownership is one of the main ways that Trump’s business empire intersects with sports, and his handling of those businesses has often typified the backhanded business tactics that have landed the twice-indicted former president in trouble over his career.
For example, Bedminster, which Trump owns through an entity called Lamington Farm Club LLC, utilized a farmland tax assessment reduction (thanks to a herd of goats) to limit his annual levy. At Turnberry in Scotland, Trump built a seawall that obstructed the view of nearby residents who refused to sell their homes, then billed them for construction.
In her $250 million civil fraud suit filed last summer against Trump and his three oldest children, New York Attorney General Letitia James alleged that the former president consistently and intentionally overstated the value of his golf properties, among other assets, in order to obtain more favorable lending terms from banks.
For example, the lawsuit alleged that from 2017 to 2021, Trump consistently represented Turnberry’s value at over $123 million, even though the Scottish resort had operated at a loss for each of those years.
The AG has also accused Trump of misleading Deutsche Bank in securing $125 million in loans he used to purchase the then-struggling Doral golf resort in Miami.
Last month, Trump scored a rare legal victory when the district attorney of Westchester County closed a three-year-old tax fraud investigation into his course at Briarcliff Manor without bringing charges.
As much as Trump has cultivated his image and finances around the “gentlemen’s sport,” some of the game’s key stakeholders have tried in recent years to dissociate golf from the former president. Trump National in Doral hosted a PGA or WGC event every year between 1962 and 2001, when the tournament was relocated. One of the most famous courses in Scotland, Turnberry has held four men’s Open Championships (and two on the women’s side) but in 2021 was officially removed from consideration for future majors.
And yet, if his current financial disclosures are to be taken at face value—a salient caveat, given Trump’s history—these snubs have not ultimately hurt the former president in the pocketbook.
Doral income for Trump, after reportedly dipping during his White House days, appears to have returned to its pre-presidency earnings levels and then some. Meanwhile, Trump claimed to have earned more than $52 million in income from Turnberry, from 2022 to mid-2023, doubling what he said the Scottish resort had made for him in the 12 months of 2022.
While Trump’s courses may have fallen out of favor with some tournament organizers, they have also benefited from the launch of Saudi-backed LIV Golf. Bedminster and Doral hosted LIV events in its inaugural 2022 season, his D.C. course hosted one in May, and Bedminster and Doral are set to be sites of LIV tournaments later this year. A women’s golf circuit backed by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, hosted a three-day tournament at Ferry Point last October and made a stop at Trump International West Palm Beach in May.
Trump’s golfing ties to the Middle East go deeper than just tournament play.
Through two Delaware-based LLCs, Trump disclosed taking in almost $2.7 million in licensing and management fees from DAMAC Properties, an Emirati development company that runs a Trump-named golf course in Dubai. Separately, Trump reported $5.35 million in earnings from Dar Al Arkan Property Development, a Saudi real estate firm that is currently building a Trump-named hotel and golf facility on the coast of Oman. The New York Times reported last month that Trump struck a 30-year deal to design and manage the course.
Trump disclosed only de minimis income from licensing fees associated with a planned golfing resort in Lido City, Indonesia.
As for his liabilities, Trump reported paying off the existing mortgages for his Washington and Colts Neck courses, as well as his Doral-related Deutsche Bank loans, last April. At the same time, he took out a new mortgage for Doral totaling “over $50 million” from San Diego-based Axos Bank, which has its final payment due in 2032.
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