When he was campaigning President Trump frequently bashed President Obama for playing golf and said that he would be too busy to play. Per a HuffPost article he said, “I love golf, but if I were in the White House, I don’t think I’d ever see Turnberry again. I don’t think I’d ever see Doral again,” he told a rally audience in February 2016, referring to his course near the Miami airport. “I don’t ever think I’d see anything. I just want to stay in the White House and work my ass off.”
It took less than two weeks before he broke that promise vs. Obama not playing his first round until he had been in office for about three months and Obama didn’t visit a course outside of the DC area until August 2009, seven months after his inauguration. One reason Trump has been able to play so much golf is that he inherited an economy that was in very good shape vs. Obama taking office in the teeth of the Great Recession.
As can be seen in the chart below from trumpgolfcount.com, Trump has played at least 88 rounds of golf since he became President, has likely played 139 and has visited golf courses over 193 days. These compare to Obama’s 76 outings over the same timeframe.
Trump's golf outings
Trump’s golf trips have almost exclusively been to his properties. Below is a breakdown of Trump’s visits.
Trump golf outings over 2 and a half years
1 of 193 outings were to the President’s Cup
2 of 193 outings were in Japan
3 of 193 outings were at Trump’s Ireland course
190 of 193 outings were to Trump’s golf properties
20 flights to Bedminster, New Jersey, to visit Trump’s course
24 flights to Mar-a-Lago
At his current pace Trump will visit his golf properties about 310 times and if he is re-elected it would 620.
So far Trump’s golf trips have cost at least $105 million
Trump’s trips to his golf courses are very expensive and much more than Obama’s since Trump’s have been more frequent and usually requires Air Force One and all the accompanying security arraignments.
From a combination of an analysis from the HuffPost, the GAO or General Accounting Office, Politico and the Washington Post using costs from both Obama and Trump golf trips the estimated cost of Trump’s visits so far come to a range of $105 to $108 million. When you extrapolate the $105 million estimate to eight years, assuming Trump is re-elected, the total cost is over $340 million.
The GAO report estimated that just four of Trump’s trips to Mar-a-Lago cost:
$13.6 million
Do not “capture all of the total expenditures by the government”
Do not “include certain classified cost information”
$60,000 in expenses paid to Mar-a-Lago (there have been 24 so far)
Were not able to identify meals and incidental expenses, if any, that may have been incurred at the Mar-a-Lago club
To put $340 million into perspective it is:
106 times Trump’s $400,000 salary over 8 years combined (which he is donating back to the government)
Almost twice the $190 million annual cost for the Peace Corps
$25 million more than the $315 million annual cost for the General Accounting Office
About 10 times the approximately $35 million cost of the Mueller investigation
But in reality Mueller’s team brought in more than it spent due to acquiring enough of Manafort’s assets to more than pay the full cost