By WILL WEISSERT, Related Press
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump has spent a lot of his two-week trip in Florida {golfing}. However when he will get again to the White Home, there’s a army golf course that he’s by no means performed that he’s eyeing for a main building mission.
Lengthy a popular getaway for presidents in search of a number of hours’ solace from the stress of operating the free world, the Programs at Andrews — contained in the safe confines of Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, about 15 miles from the White Home — are often called the “president’s golf course.” Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Invoice Clinton, George W. Bush and Joe Biden have frolicked there, and Barack Obama performed it extra regularly than any president, roughly 110 occasions in eight years.
Trump has at all times most well-liked the golf programs his household owns — spending about considered one of each 4 days of his second time period at considered one of them. However he’s now enlisted golf champion Jack Nicklaus because the architect to overtake the Programs at Andrews.
“It’s wonderful that a person has time to take a pair hours away from the world crises. They usually’re folks like everyone else,” mentioned Michael Thomas, the previous basic supervisor of the course, who has golfed with most of the presidents visiting Andrews through the years.
Andrews, higher often called the house of Air Power One, has two 18-hole programs and a 9-hole one. Its services have undergone renovations prior to now, together with in 2018, when Congress accepted funding to switch getting old presidential plane and to construct a brand new hanger and assist services. That mission was shut sufficient to the programs that they needed to be altered then, too.
Trump toured the bottom by helicopter earlier than Thanksgiving with Nicklaus, who has designed prime programs the world over. The president referred to as Andrews “an amazing place, that’s been destroyed through the years, by means of lack of upkeep.”
Different golfers, although, describe Andrews’ grounds as in fine condition, regardless of some dry patches. On-line opinions reward the course’s mature timber, tough roughs, and ponds and streams that function water hazards. The programs are principally flat, however afford views of the encompassing base.
‘All of them prefer to drive the cart’
The primary president to golf at Andrews was Ford in 1974. Thomas started working there a pair years later, and was basic supervisor from 1981 till he retired in 2019.
He mentioned the Secret Service through the years used as many as 28 golf carts — in addition to the president’s standard 30-car motorcade — to maintain the perimeter safe.
“It’s a Cecil B. DeMille manufacturing each time,” mentioned Thomas, who had the chance to play rounds with 4 completely different presidents, and with Biden when he was vp.
He mentioned the commanders in chief typically loved their trip on the course in their very own distinctive methods, however “all of them prefer to drive the cart as a result of they by no means get a possibility to drive.”
“It’s like getting your driver’s license yet again,” Thomas laughed.
Trump golfs most weekends, and as of Jan. 1, has spent an estimated 92 days of his second time period doing so, based on an Related Press evaluation of his schedules.
That tally contains days when Trump was taking part in programs his household owns in Virginia, round 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the White Home, and close to his Florida property Mar-a-Lago, the place he’s spending the winter holidays. It additionally contains 10 days Trump spent staying at his golf membership in Bedminster, New Jersey, the place his schedule allowed time for rounds of golf.
Trump has visited Andrews prior to now, however the White Home and base haven’t any report of him taking part in the programs.
One other of Trump building tasks
Andrews’ army historical past dates to the Civil Conflict, when Union troops used a church close to Camp Springs, Maryland, as sleeping quarters. Its golf course opened in 1960.
The White Home mentioned the renovation would be the most vital within the historical past of Andrews. The programs and clubhouse want enhancements because of age and put on, it mentioned, and there are discussions about together with a multifunctional occasion heart as a part of the mission.
“President Trump is a champion-level golfer with a rare eye for element and design,” White Home spokesman Davis Ingle mentioned in an announcement. “His imaginative and prescient to renovate and beautify Joint Base Andrews’ golf programs will convey much-needed enhancements that servicemembers and their households will have the ability to take pleasure in for generations to return.”
Plans are within the very early phases, and the price of — and funding for — the mission haven’t been decided, the White Home mentioned. Trump has mentioned solely that it’s going to require “little or no cash.”
The Andrews enhancements be a part of a bevy of Trump building tasks, together with demolishing the White Home’s East Wing for a sprawling ballroom now anticipated to value $400 million, redoing the rest room connected to the Lincoln bed room and changing the Rose Backyard’s garden with a Mar-a-Lago-like patio space.
Outdoors the White Home, Trump has led constructing tasks on the Kennedy Heart and desires to erect a Paris-style arch close to the Lincoln Memorial, and has mentioned he desires to rebuild Dulles Worldwide Airport in northern Virginia.
On Wednesday, in the meantime, the Trump administration ended a lease settlement with a non-profit for 3 public golf programs in Washington — which may permit the president to additional form {golfing} within the nation’s capital. The White Home, nonetheless, mentioned that transfer isn’t associated to the plans for Andrews.
Presidential perks of {golfing} at Andrews
When the president is {golfing}, Andrews officers block off 9 holes at a time so nobody performs in entrance of him, permitting for additional safety whereas additionally making certain constant speed-of-play, Thomas mentioned.
That’s comparatively simply performed provided that the programs aren’t open to the general public. They’re normally reserved for energetic or retired members of the army and their households, in addition to some Protection Division-linked federal workers.
Thomas remembers taking part in a spherical with the older President Bush, a World Golf Corridor of Fame inductee recognized for quick play, whereas first girl Barbara Bush walked with Millie, the primary couple’s English Springer Spaniel. George W. Bush additionally performed quick, Thomas mentioned, and acquired further train by regularly using his mountain bike earlier than {golfing}.
When he wasn’t {golfing} at Andrews, Obama tried to recreate at the least a part of the expertise again residence. He had a White Home golf simulator put in after then-first girl Michelle Obama requested Thomas how they could purchase a mannequin that the president had seen marketed on the Golf Channel. Thomas gave her a contact on the community.
Obama famously minimize quick a spherical at Andrews after 9 holes in 2011 to hustle again to the White Home for what turned out to be a top-secret evaluate of ultimate preparations for a Navy Seal raid on the compound of Osama Bin Laden.
However, whereas Thomas was {golfing} with presidents, he mentioned he by no means witnessed play interrupted by an necessary name or any main emergency that compelled them off the course mid-hole. There additionally have been by no means any rain-outs.
“If there was rain coming, they’d get the climate forecast earlier than we’d,” Thomas mentioned. “They’d cancel fast on that.”
