At the end of March, after having played a round of golf with Ernie Els and other PGA tour players, ex-President Donald Trump issued a statement confirming that he had scored a hole-in-one on the par three seventh hole at Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach. Els subsequently tweeted, “Great shot on Saturday 45! Fun to watch the ball roll in for a hole-in-one.”
As many of our previous stories have demonstrated, Earth Muffins has great respect for Mr. Trump, our 45th President and, if truth be told, our 46th as well. We would never question his honesty or accuse him of disseminating fake news. Still, we wanted to confirm this important event and, so, reached out to the golfers who witnessed it. None of them would respond to our requests, nor would the caddies, the photographer or others who were present. So, we are left to consider possible explanations.
1) Most likely, things happened exactly as Mr. Trump explained it: The ball, he said, “bounced twice and then went clank, into the hole. These great tour players noticed it before I did because their eyes are slightly better, but on that one hole only, their swings weren’t.”
2) He may have been using a golf ball into which a hole was drilled, and a strong magnet inserted.
3) While he was President, Trump showed a great deal of interest in precision-guided munition (aka smart missiles) that can be programmed to hit specific targets with great precision. During the First Gulf War, for example, guided munitions accounted for only 9% of weapons fired, but accounted for 75% of all successful hits. Department of Defense insiders say that, in his time in office, Trump requested and attended no fewer than 43 briefings on the subject; many of them in the presence of representatives from Titleist, Callaway, Bridgestone, and Taylormade.
4) He fucking lied and got Els to go along with it.
Look, everyone knows Trump is a good golfer but exactly how good is questionable. The golf writer Rick Reilly points out that “Donald Trump’s boast about winning 18 club championships is a lie that’s so over-the-top Crazytown it loses all credibility among golfers the second it’s out of his mouth.” Reilly also pointed out that Trump’s claim to have a 2.8 handicap is ludicrous. Jack Nicklaus’ is 3.4. As Reilly put it, “If Trump is a 2.8, Queen Elizabeth is a pole vaulter.” [In fact, the Queen got a bronze medal at the 1953 Commonwealth Games. She failed on all of her attempts but there were only two other competitors.]
But, truth be told, Trump is a rank amateur compared to Kim Jong-il, the father of Kim Jong-un, who ruled North Korea from 1994-2011. The Supreme Leader claimed to have hit eleven holes-in-one in his first ever round of golf at age 52. This was in 1994 when the 5-foot3 Kim was reported to have shot 38 under par at the 7,700-yard championship course at Pyongyang. By that standard, Donald, you’ve got a long way to go.
In related news, in a recent speech at the Center for Financial Stability in New York, Philadelphia Federal Reserve President Patrick Harker, after having noted the lives taken by the coronavirus and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, turned to the much more serious problem of inflation in the United States. “One of our contacts, for instance, mentioned whopping membership fee increases at his golf club,” Harker said, “suggesting this summer may be a good time to play at your local muni instead.” Thank goodness for Trump he gets to play for free at his own courses. We’re sure that, for the ex-President (and soon-to-be President again), there will be many more holes-in-one to come.
Earth Muffins 