Trump's caddy will deny he said this in 3..2..1..

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“To say ‘Donald Trump cheats’ is like saying ‘Michael Phelps swims,'” writes Rick Reilly in the new book “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump” (Hachette Book Group), out Tuesday. “He cheats at the highest level. He cheats when people are watching and he cheats when they aren’t. He cheats whether you like it or not. He cheats because that’s how he plays golf … if you’re playing golf with him, he’s going to cheat.”

  

He cheats at everything.

Reilly, a former Sports Illustrated columnist who has played with Trump in the past, spoke to dozens of players — both amateur and professional — to recount some of the president’s worst cons on the course, starting with his declared handicap of 2.8.

In layman’s terms, the lower the handicap, the better the player. Jack Nicklaus, winner of a record 18 major golf titles and generally considered the greatest golfer in the history of the game, has a handicap of 3.4.

[...]

Shortly after he became president, Trump played with Tiger Woods, the current world No. 1 Dustin Johnson and the veteran PGA Tour pro Brad Faxon. Given the quality and profile of his companions, you might have thought Trump would have been on his best behavior. Not so.

On one hole, Trump dunked a shot into the lake, but as his opponents weren’t looking he simply dropped another ball — and then hit that into the water, too.

That's awesome.

“So he drives up and drops where he should’ve dropped the first time and hits it on the green,” recalls Faxon.

The actor Samuel L. Jackson has also witnessed the underhanded methods Trump employs, according to Reilly.

“We clearly saw him hook a ball into a lake at Trump National [Bedminster, New Jersey],” he says, “and his caddy told him he found it!”

The boxer Oscar De La Hoya and rocker Alice Cooper have also seen the same shenanigans first hand, while LPGA player Suzann Pettersen, another victim, thinks it’s all down to his caddy “since no matter how far into the woods he hits the ball, it’s in the middle of the fairway when we get there.”

Jesus wept.

Even Trump’s golf courses lie. As the owner of 14 golf clubs and with his name on another five, Trump has, according to Reilly, been known to wildly exaggerate their standing in course rankings, overvalue them and even play fast and loose with their locations.

At Trump Washington at Lowes Island, there’s a Civil War monument (bearing Trump’s name, obviously) between the 14th and 15th holes, reminding golfers of how many soldiers, from North and South, died at that very spot.

It’s a nice touch, even though several Civil War historians have confirmed that no battle took place anywhere near the memorial.

[...]

In a game where etiquette is everything, Reilly reports that Trump never takes his cap off for the end-of-round handshake, nor does he remove it in the clubhouse afterward, presumably for fear of what damage a sweaty round might have done to that hairstyle.

Or even not sweaty. What would pulling off a cap do to that weirdly sculpted mess?

Quite why Trump cheats is another matter. He is, by all accounts, a very good golfer for his age (even Tiger Woods was impressed) but seems incapable of playing by the rules.

Very good is never enough for Trump as he exhibits every time he exaggerates a number, which is every time he says a number.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

“A caddy tells Reilly that Trump’s golf cart once contained a can of red spray paint, and that Trump marked trees his balls hit with a red ‘X,’” Curtis writes. “The trees were removed the next day.”

[...]

Trump, like many other people with more money than actual worth, is the sort of person who would cheat at golf. He’s also nothing more than that, and whether his greatest lies and worst crimes undo him or not, it’s the little lies—the ones he tells because he can’t handle even the small sting of truth inherent in a duffed approach shot—that show his towering smallness most clearly. Every stupid story rephrases the same obvious truth, and reveals the same essential thing. The man at the center of it, lying and hacking and zooming away in his whining little cart, is too small for a grand critique.

  Deadspin