Sport5 min(s) read
Published 06:58 04 Aug 2026 GMT
Golfers have spotted another big red flag after Donald Trump claimed to win his Bedminster course senior club championship with a round of 70 this weekend.
The 80-year-old president’s love of golf is well known, but there are persistent rumors that he cheats and sometimes doesn’t exactly stick to the book.
In typical fashion, Donald Trump shared a video on Truth Social of the ‘winning shot’ for his 43rd club championship - an admittedly lovely pitch into the 18th green - and even found time for a dig at his fellow competitors.
He wrote: “I won with a score of 70, and am so honored in that, unlike the rest of the field, I’m given very little time to practice, because I’m focused on many other things. "It’s called TALENT, and I have it, and they don’t!”
What a way to advertise your own club, eh?
Anyway, it’s not that slightly classless victory speech that has triggered scrutiny from some golfers, it’s his description of this chip into the green as the ‘winning shot’.
Because, as every club competition golfer knows, you can’t win a stroke play competition with a chip - it’s got to get in the hole first.
Sure, The Donald might have just said that the chip was the ‘winning shot’ because he walked up and rolled in the putt, but there are no videos of that available, which is exactly the kind of vacuum that his critics need to create a plausible theory.
In social golf - a round between friends - some short putts might be conceded as ‘gimmes’, as they are close enough that it’s unlikely that the player will miss.
This one, however, was for a club championship and in a competition, which means that all putts have to be holed out to record a legitimate score on the card.
Trump has been accused of fudging scorecards for years now - books have even been written about his golf cheating - and many golfers have questioned whether an 80-year-old could shoot 70 around a course like this.
After all, par for the course is 72 - so an 80-year-old shooting a score 10 shots lower than their age and two under for the whole course?
Unlikely at best.
Nobody is doubting that Trump isn’t a decent golfer - even celebrities have admitted that - it’s just that the claims he has made are… bold.
On holing out the putt, one comment read: "A winning shot that doesn’t go in the hole? That’s strange.”
Another wrote: "How is this 'the winning shot' if it didn't go in? Genuinely curious.”
A third said: "How is that THE winning shot when the ball is still in play?”
Of course, this one legitimate concern about the rules of golf is accompanied by a number of elaborate conspiracy theories.
This is, after all, Donald Trump we are talking about - bizarre theories follow him everywhere.
Some disagreed with the veracity of the video he shared, claiming that it was AI, or even that he had a remote controlled ball.
This comes down to the backspin that the president seemed to get, perfectly checking his ball next to the hole.
One person said: "This looks fake. I’ve never seen a ball bounce that many times and then, suddenly, have enough backspin to stop and rill back.
"If it had that much backspin, it would have done it on the first bounce.”
"100% that golf ball is remote controlled! those bounces are not normal," said another.
"Pretty sure that swing doesn’t produce that kind of backspin,” a third wrote.
None of this is new - Trump has been making huge claims about his golfing abilities, often drawing comparisons to Kim Jong-Il, for years.
All that time, people have been accusing him of cheating, including sharing some videos of caddies in action to help out, as well of suggesting he manipulates scorecards and claims victory in tournaments that he hasn’t legitimately won.
Sportswriter Rick Reilly, who has also questioned this latest victory, even wrote a book called Commander in Cheat in which he discussed Trump’s on-course antics.
Trump - of course - has denied the allegations.
In the book, Reilly wrote: "At Winged Foot, where Trump is a member, the caddies got so used to seeing him kick his ball back onto the fairway they came up with a nickname for him: Pele.”
LPGA player Suzann Pettersen was reported saying the president 'cheats like hell' in 2018, while actor Samuel L. Jackson accused the president of cheating at golf in 2016.
It’s really no wonder that the allegations of cheating have followed Trump around his entire golfing life.
When you claim to shoot 70 around a par-72 championship course at the age of 80, people are going to ask questions.
