Tag: golf

As a result of the fact that he vacations at Mar-a-Lago and his New Jersey golf club, demands protection for his adult children, and had his wife and youngest son stay in New York for the first five months of his presidency, Donald Trump has added $120 million to the annual cost of providing protection for the president compared with what a normal president would require. The New York Times reported that he pledged to contribute 0.8 percent of this amount ($1 million) to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey. If he follows through on this pledge, it means the public will only be down $119.0 million ($119.6 million, after taking account of the tax deduction).

Dean Baker, getting it right as usual. Even with all that taken as fact, Trump will inevitably still try to wriggle out of actually paying, try to run it out of campaign or “charity” funds. At the very least, can we hold him to spending his own goddamned money on this, even if he is making said money by renting golf carts to the Secret Service? Is that too much to ask?

Relative Dominance

Bill Barnwell uses a z-score to rate various golfing performances to each other. McIlroy’s 2011 US Open is up there (in the top 25), but Tiger’s 2000 destruction of Pebble Beach is as far above the second-best performance of all time as that performance (by Davis Love III) is above the twentieth. Also interesting that Niklaus’ second-place (e.g. losing) effort in the 1977 British Open still ranks as one of the greatest all-time individual performances in golf. Good on you, Jack.

Relative Dominance