The most important chapter has begun in the ongoing saga between the Trump administration and Washington DC’s public golf courses.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Ministry of the Interior revoked the lease from the nonprofit responsible for renovating several municipal golf courses in DC, paving the way for the president to take control of the courses as part of a larger effort to reimagine the capital’s public spaces.
The administration’s decision comes just weeks after the president himself floated the idea of seizing Washington’s municipal golf courses from the National Links Trust, the nonprofit charged with their repair and maintenance.
“If we do them, we will do them very nicely,” Trump said in an interview with the American newspaper The Washington Post Wall Street Journal.
The news marks the president’s most significant golf decision in his second term, raising questions about the future of some of the city’s most historic community-owned golf courses. With that importance in mind, we answer some of the most important questions below.
Explain it to me as if I were five: what’s happening?
The Trump administration has fired the people responsible for the three taxpayer-owned golf courses in Washington DC (Rock Creek, East Potomac and Langston Hughes).
Based on the president’s words and reports from various media, we believe that the White House plans to take control of those golf courses itself. Trump, who owns more than a dozen golf courses worldwide, has stated that he has big plans for D.C.’s public golf courses under his leadership. He hosted longtime course design opponent Tom Fazio for a two-hour lunch meeting at the White House in November 2025 — though Fazio said they had not discussed plans for DC’s munis.
Who has the Trump administration said goodbye to?
The National Links Trust, a non-profit organization founded by several golf enthusiasts with a core mission of “positively impacting our community and changing lives through affordable and accessible golf.” The NLT has won a 50-year contract to monitor, restore and renovate Washington DC’s public golf courses through 2020 from the first Trump White House.
How has the National Links Trust done?
Pretty stellar! To date, the NLT says it has more than doubled the number of rounds played and course revenue at D.C. municipal golf courses since taking control of the lease from the Parks Department. It has also invested more than $8.5 million in “capital improvement projects” for the golf courses while maintaining the lowest prices for peak tee times.
As part of the National Links Trust’s original agreement with the Parks Department, the NLT also secured pro bono design work from some of the nation’s top golf course designers, including Gil Hanse, Tom Doak and Beau Welling, to undertake the renovations of each of DC’s public courses. Work on the largest of those projects to date — a massive renovation of Rock Creek — had just begun when the Trump administration intervened.
However, the NLT’s most productive work has not only involved access to golf courses or tax revenue, but also its commitment to maintaining the affordability and accessibility of the DC muniscene. Tee times at each of DC’s three muni courses have remained well below market rates in the five years since the NLT took over, in most cases less than $50 per 18 holes, while course maintenance decisions are aimed at ensuring maintenance costs remain low. In doing so, the NLT seemed to prove that it could have its cake and eat it too: steadily improving the quality of DC’s public golf course without driving up costs to taxpayers.
If the NLT didn’t do much wrong, why did the Trump administration throw them out?
That’s a good question. The Ministry of the Interior has pointed out $8.8 million in unpaid rent as justification for revoking the National Links Trust’s lease – a categorization the NLT strongly denies.
According to details of the National Links Trust’s publicly available lease, rental payments from the NLT can be offset by capital improvements to the courses. And according to the National Links Trust’s statement on the administration’s decision, the National Park Service has approved rental offsets in an amount equal to the Department of the Interior’s calculation.
Is there a better explanation for the decision that the Trump administration is not saying?
Yes. Perhaps the simplest explanation for the administration’s decision concerns President Trump himself.
The president is an avid golfer and an obsessed golf fan. He has also recently focused a lot on the physical legacy he will leave behind in the nation’s capital. renaming the Kennedy Center after himself, announcing plans to build a triumphal archand demolishing the East Wing of the White House to build a new ballroom. (The last of the three projects resulted in the administration’s first foray into the DC muni scene in 2025, when dump trucks moved piles of soil and rubble from the East Wing to East Potomac Golf Links.)
The municipal golf courses would give Trump another place to put his stamp on the shape of Washington DC in his final years as president.
What does the NLT say about the Trump administration’s decision?
Here are excerpts from the National Links Trust’s statement:
“We fundamentally disagree with the government’s characterization of NLT as being in default under the lease. We have always had a productive and cooperative working relationship with the National Park Service and have worked hand-in-hand on all aspects of our golf course operations and development projects.”
“On our ongoing Rock Creek Park renovation project, construction has halted and our general contractor is demobilizing. After five years of navigating complex federal permitting processes, this development is extremely disappointing to all who supported the project.”
What is currently changing in the DC muni scene?
Not too much in the near future. The National Links Trust has signed on to guide DC Munis through the transition period back to federal government control. It also halted all progress on the Rock Creek renovation project.
What could change in the future?
It’s hard to say for sure, but it seems likely that any Trump-led changes to the muni scene could have downstream impacts on the wallets of DC golfers. The average cost of a peak tee time in the President’s public golf portfolio is about $300 per 18 holes, or more than six times the current tee time cost at DC’s three munis. Rates for the cheapest Trump public access course, Trump National in Los Angeles, start at $112.
The president has said he would reduce green fee costs for locals even in the event of a fruitful renovation project at the East Potomac Links site, which has reportedly been the subject of Trump’s DC muni interests. Regardless of the ultimate cost to local people, the folks at the National Links Trust agree their vision for DC’s munis — heady, budget-conscious havens for great golf — will likely be forgotten.
“If you design a course with a green fee of $250 for visitors and $50 for locals, it still has to meet the expectations of the golfer paying $250,” NLT founder Will Smith said. WAVES Michael Bamberger last month.
What else is President Trump doing in golf right now?
In addition to his muni efforts, the president has taken on a major role in pro golf during his second term, hosting regular meetings with the Saudi leaders behind the LIV Golf and PGA Tour leaders, including a joint meeting at the White House in early 2025 that failed to generate any momentum toward peace between the two sides. Trump’s golf business ventures have also benefited from his time in the White House: In 2026, the PGA Tour will return to Trump Doral for the first time in a decade, while the president’s home course in Bedminster, N.J. is rumored to be a potential LIV location.
The return of the Doral event represents a full-circle moment for the president, who saw PGA Tour golf leave its longtime host in Florida in the midst of his first successful election a decade earlier. In 2015, when Trump’s first presidential bid made headlines for his comments about Mexican immigrants, Cadillac ended its sponsorship of the event at Doral and the Tour opted to leave Doral behind and go to a new location. Then-PGA Tour chief Jay Monahan insisted the decision was driven solely by sponsor interest, but the optics were telling: The Tour had abandoned an event on a Trump course in favor of a tournament held in Mexico.
Now, in 2026, the PGA Tour is back in Doral… and Cadillac has once again signed on as the event’s title sponsor.
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