This Presidential Golf Course Could Be Trump’s Next Major Construction Project | EUROtoday

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump has spent a lot of his two-week trip in Florida {golfing}. But when he will get again to the White House, there’s a navy golf course that he’s by no means performed that he’s eyeing for a significant development mission.

Long a popular getaway for presidents searching for a couple of hours’ solace from the stress of working the free world, the Courses at Andrews — contained in the safe confines of Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the White House — are generally known as the “president’s golf course.” Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Joe Biden have hung out there, and Barack Obama performed it extra ceaselessly than any president, roughly 110 occasions in eight years.

Trump has at all times most popular the golf programs his household owns — spending about one among each 4 days of his second time period at one among them. But he’s now enlisted golf champion Jack Nicklaus because the architect to overtake the Courses at Andrews.

“It’s amazing that an individual has time to take a couple hours away from the world crises. And they’re people like everybody else,” mentioned Michael Thomas, the previous normal supervisor of the course, who has golfed with lots of the presidents visiting Andrews over time.

Andrews, higher generally known as the house of Air Force 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 older 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 known as Andrews “a great place, that’s been destroyed over the years, through lack of maintenance.”

Other golfers, although, describe Andrews’ grounds as in good condition, regardless of some dry patches. Online opinions reward the course’s mature timber, difficult roughs, and ponds and streams that function water hazards. The programs are principally flat, however afford views of the encircling base.

The first president to golf at Andrews was Ford in 1974. Thomas started working there a pair years later, and was normal supervisor from 1981 till he retired in 2019.

He mentioned the Secret Service over time used as many as 28 golf carts — in addition to the president’s common 30-car motorcade — to maintain the perimeter safe.

“It’s a Cecil B. DeMille production every time,” mentioned Thomas, who had the chance to play rounds with 4 totally different presidents, and with Biden when he was vp.

He mentioned the commanders in chief usually loved their trip on the course in their very own distinctive methods, however “they all like to drive the cart because they never get an opportunity to drive.”

“It’s like getting your driver’s license all over 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, in response to an Associated Press evaluation of his schedules.

That tally consists of days when Trump was taking part in programs his household owns in Virginia, round 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the White House, and close to his Florida property Mar-a-Lago, the place he’s spending the winter holidays. It additionally consists of 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 House and base haven’t any file of him taking part in the programs.

Andrews’ navy historical past dates to the Civil War, when Union troops used a church close to Camp Springs, Maryland, as sleeping quarters. Its golf course opened in 1960.

The White House mentioned the renovation would be the most important within the historical past of Andrews. The programs and clubhouse want enhancements as a result 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 an extraordinary eye for detail and design,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle mentioned in a press release. “His vision to renovate and beautify Joint Base Andrews’ golf courses will bring much-needed improvements that servicemembers and their families will be able to enjoy for generations to come.”

Plans are within the very early levels, and the price of — and funding for — the mission haven’t been decided, the White House mentioned. Trump has mentioned solely that it’s going to require “very little money.”

The Andrews enhancements be part of a bevy of Trump development tasks, together with demolishing the White House’s East Wing for a sprawling ballroom now anticipated to price $400 million, redoing the lavatory connected to the Lincoln bed room and changing the Rose Garden’s garden with a Mar-a-Lago-like patio space.

Outside the White House, Trump has led constructing tasks on the Kennedy Center and desires to erect a Paris-style arch close to the Lincoln Memorial, and has mentioned he needs to rebuild Dulles International 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 House, nevertheless, mentioned that transfer isn’t associated to the plans for 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 guaranteeing constant speed-of-play, Thomas mentioned.

That’s comparatively simply carried out provided that the programs aren’t open to the general public. They’re often reserved for energetic or retired members of the navy and their households, in addition to some Defense Department-linked federal staff.

Thomas remembers taking part in a spherical with the older President Bush, a World Golf Hall of Fame inductee identified for quick play, whereas first woman Barbara Bush walked with Millie, the primary couple’s English Springer Spaniel. George W. Bush additionally performed quick, Thomas mentioned, and bought further train by ceaselessly driving his mountain bike earlier than {golfing}.

When he wasn’t {golfing} at Andrews, Obama tried to recreate not less than a part of the expertise again house. He had a White House golf simulator put in after then-first woman 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 reduce brief a spherical at Andrews after 9 holes in 2011 to hustle again to the White House for what turned out to be a top-secret assessment of ultimate preparations for a Navy Seal raid on the compound of Osama Bin Laden.

But, whereas Thomas was {golfing} with presidents, he mentioned he by no means witnessed play interrupted by an essential name or any main emergency that pressured them off the course mid-hole. There additionally had been by no means any rain-outs.

“If there was rain coming, they’d get the weather forecast before we would,” Thomas mentioned. “They would cancel quick on that.”