President Donald Trump wants to turn his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, into an official government golf course for U.S. presidents, operated by his family’s company.
Harvey Oyer, a real estate lawyer there, said in a letter to the Palm Beach County commissioners that Trump is offering to “designate” his Trump International Golf Club as a “U.S. Presidential Golf Course.” The course would be “utilized by all past, current, and future United States Presidents and visiting foreign heads of state,” according to a copy of the letter, sent last month and obtained by the Palm Beach Post.
“Just as Camp David, Windsor Castle, or the Elysée Palace are known worldwide, so too will the Presidential Golf Course in Palm Beach County,” Oyer wrote.
The course, opened in 1999, was Trump’s first. It’s about 5 miles west of Mar-a-Lago, the resort and estate Trump purchased in 1985, and just south of the airport previously known as the Palm Beach International Airport, which Florida Governor Ron DeSantis renamed the President Donald J. Trump International Airport on July 9. The plan to make the course presidential represents the latest effort to expand Trump’s presence and cement his legacy in Palm Beach County. As Trump and his allies work to put his name up across the city in Washington, D.C., similar efforts are occurring in Florida.
Under the proposal, Trump’s family company would provide all access to the golf course and facilities at no cost to the federal government, but the company would continue to operate it.
Turning a normal golf course into a course for U.S. presidents requires security upgrades and improvements, which the letter says Trump International Golf Club already has. The presidential designation could also allow the course to use the presidential seal, although Trump has shown no hesitation in using seal at private golf courses and elsewhere before.
Past presidents have donated property to the government before, the letter notes, such as Dwight Eisenhower donating his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to the National Park Service and FDR donating land in Hyde Park, New York, where his library was built. But Trump’s proposal represents something different. While the letter frames it as a gift, Trump also stands to benefit.
Trump made nearly $37 million from the golf course last year, according to financial records reviewed by The Washington Post. If the course became a permanent fixture for future presidents, that could generate more revenue for the Trump family company.
Trump’s preoccupation with government golf courses includes a D.C. golf course he wants to remake that’s run by the National Park Service. (It’s where rubble from the White House East Wing was taken after the structure was knocked down last year.) A government course in Palm Beach that his family’s business runs and that he can go to as a former president would be an even closer entwining of Trump’s golf habit and the state, even after he leaves office.
