Washington - A little after 1 p.m. last Thursday, anybody
watching the Senior PGA Championship on the Golf Channel got to see a little
bit of American history.
A man came on the screen during a commercial break to praise
the golf course hosting the event - a course that happens to be owned by the
president of the United States.
"This world-class venue features the best panoramic
views of the historic Potomac River," said Paul Levy, president of the PGA
of America.
The commercial showed beautiful views of the Trump
National Golf Club in Virginia, which charges new members a $60 000 fee to
join. It ended with a shot of the championship trophy in front of a man-made
waterfall, a setting that can be rented out for weddings.
"It's the greatest marketing in the world,"
Eric Trump, the president's son and an executive of the family company, said in
an interview later at the course. He was celebrating the good publicity that
the course had received related to the tournament.
As a golf tournament, this event is nothing unusual: one
of five annual "majors" on a PGA tour for golfers 50 and older.
But the event, which runs through Sunday at this plush
property just 25 miles from the White House, is a remarkable moment in
President Donald Trump's young White House tenure - illustrating how the
longtime businessman has retained some of his old identity as a golf-course
empresario even as he adjusts to the presidency.
Spectators watch golfers practicing at the Trump National Golf Club. Washington Post photo by Salwan Georges.
The success of this course, one of 16 worldwide that bear
his name, is the result of meticulous effort by Trump the golf-course owner,
who made $25 million in upgrades to the Virginia course that are lauded by
golfers and who also inked a bigger tournament, the 2022 PGA Championship, for
his Bedminster, New Jersey, course.
Reminder
The weekend's festivities also offer a reminder of the
complications surrounding the promise from Trump's lawyers that he would not
use the presidency to boost his businesses. Trump has retained ownership of his
real estate and branding empire - including the Virginia golf course - despite
criticism from Democrats and ethics experts that he stood to personally profit
from his public duties.
In this case, it's unclear whether Trump's business is
getting a cut of the ticket revenue. But the business, and the Trump brand more
broadly, certainly stands to gain positive publicity.
The Golf Channel broadcast Friday's round and NBC, the
network that made Trump a star with the "The Apprentice," will
broadcast the final two rounds Saturday and Sunday. Nine golfers are wearing
Trump-brand gear while they compete.
"This course is going to get TV time. It's going to
get status. The world's best players are going to be playing there on national
television," said Andrew Wood, a golf marketing expert who has advised
hundreds of course owners. Wood said that might cause the course to rise in
national rankings and to attract more dues-paying members and more events for
the course's ballroom.
There is also a crucial boost to the owner's status in
the world of golf.
"It's ego," Wood said.
It's not clear, for now, whether Trump himself will
attend. The president will be back in Washington on Sunday from his trip
overseas, in time for the tournament's final day.
His arrival would bring the spotlight of the White House
press corps to the tournament and this course, and it could allow a struggling
president to associate himself with a success from his past life.
The White House won't say for certain if he plans to
attend.
"This event is not on the President's
schedule," White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters wrote to The Washington Post. "Happy to
circle back if that changes."
She declined to answer questions about whether Trump's
advisers had considered the ethical implications of showing up at the course in
the middle of a tournament.
Historical marker
Trump bought this course, formerly known as the Lowes
Island Club, in 2009. He added a historical marker commemorating a Civil War
battle on the site - though historians have said no such battle occurred there.
He rearranged the two courses so that the holes got
longer and more challenging, and so that the most beautiful holes along the
Potomac were linked into a championship-level course.
He also enhanced that view by cutting down 465 trees near
the river. That move did not violate laws, but it alarmed environmentalists,
who said it would cause more erosion and more sediment clouding the Potomac.
"It is now the single largest stretch of Potomac
shoreline on either side of the river - from American Legion Bridge up to
Harpers Ferry - without any trees on it," said Hedrick Belin, president of
the nonprofit Potomac Conservancy. That is a stretch of roughly 50 miles.
Trump praised his work using the same metric: "You
can go 20 miles up and down the river and there's nothing like it," he
told a Virginia reporter.
The goal, all along, was to compete for big tournaments -
to be on par with courses like Congressional Country Club in Maryland, which
has hosted three U.S. Opens. "Congressional doesn't have a chance,"
Trump told The Post in 2009.
It took years. It took planning. It worked.
In 2014, before Trump began his presidential bid, the PGA
of America awarded the Senior PGA Championship to his Virginia course.
And the PGA kept it there, shrugging off the
controversies surrounding Trump's campaign and his young presidency. Trump has
worked hard on this relationship: Golf.com reported in February that he'd spoken
three times since the election to Pete Bevacqua, chief executive of the PGA of
America. They met once at Trump Tower. They golfed in Florida. And Trump called
Bevacqua out of the blue to talk golf, the magazine reported.
How did the PGA decide that Trump's politics were not an
issue?
"The PGA of America is not a political organization.
Our association with the Trump organization is strictly as a developer of golf
facilities," a spokesman wrote in an emailed statement.
The PGA said that the commercial shown Thursday on the
Golf Channel, touting the virtues of Trump's course, was a standard gesture.
For Trump, like other course owners, the tournament
itself is unlikely to be a big moneymaker - at least not right away.
Two men near the stairs leading to the clubhouse at the Trump National Golf Club. Washington Post photo by Salwan Georges.
Neither the PGA nor the Trump Organization would give
details of their financial arrangement. Experts on the golf business said that,
in general, the host club may get a share of the revenue from ticket and
concession-stand sales - or perhaps a flat "site fee." In some cases,
the course gets nothing and the PGA keeps it all.
For the tournament's corporate sponsors, the benefits of
supporting the tournament could extend beyond the four-day event itself.
Inked in February
A sign for one sponsor - Telos, a cybersecurity
contractor that does millions of dollars in business with the government - was
placed at the first tee in April, weeks before the tournament began. Trump has
visited the course twice since then, once stopping in the clubhouse restaurant
at the same time Telos chief executive John B. Wood was having lunch.
A Telos spokeswoman said the company signed the deal with
the PGA in February, after Trump had taken office. She said that the
sponsorship was intended to honour military veterans, who are working as
volunteers at the tournament.
Eric Trump said corporate sponsors had signed on to
support the competition years before his father ran for president and were
deals with the PGA, not his company. He said the event - and the club - would
be successful because of the quality and location of the facilities, not his
father being president.
"This tournament is a validation of everything that
we've done," Eric Trump said. "This course will stand against any
course in the world at this point and that's why this event is here."
He said he doubted that his father's election had much
effect on whether people were willing to sign up as members, its main source of
revenue.
"I don't think you do that because somebody holds a
political office," he said.
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For Trump himself however, any visit to the tournament on
Sunday would bring new questions.
Already, he has brought the presidential spotlight
repeatedly to his for-profit businesses. He welcomed visitors at the Mar-a-Lago
Club, which is taking new members at $200,000 each. He golfed at Trump National
in Bedminster, where it's at least $75,000, according to documents sent
recently to prospective members. Trump ate at the Trump International Hotel in
Washington, where the cheapest steak costs $52.
The idea that Trump might show up in person seems to have
intrigued some potential ticket-buyers. Kurt Knapper, a PGA official, said
before the tournament began that he'd heard the question repeatedly. Will the
president show?
"I just give them the same answer," said
Knapper, "which is that I don't know."