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Trump's D.C. golf course overhaul will close popular links for 15 months

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Topline

East Potomac Golf Links, a highly popular municipal golf course in Washington, D.C., and the target of one of President Donald Trump’s contentious renovation projects, will close for 15 months starting in November, the president said on Sunday.

Key Facts

In a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump shared a map of the redesigned course, which he said would be “open to the Public while, at the same time, designed to the Highest Level of Golf and able to hold World Class Tournaments.”

The “current Course” will close when renovations begin on Nov. 15, Trump said, and will reopen in “approximately 15 months.”

The announcement comes shortly after the National Park Service cut down hundreds of trees at the course, a move that prompted a federal judge to block further tree removal and chastise lawyers for the Trump administration.

Big Number

430. That’s how many healthy, non-invasive trees were removed from the East Potomac Golf Links in a few hours last week, the Trump administration acknowledged. “Breakneck speed to clear trees that posed no harm,” District Court Judge Ana Reyes wrote in a memo accompanying an order to stop cutting down any tree at the course until Oct. 26. “The reason? Disputed. The budget? Unclear. The environmental impact? Unstudied. The urgency? None. Next steps: bulldoze hundreds more.”

Contra

Days after the order was signed, the Trump administration moved to disqualify Reyes from presiding over the case, claiming she “hamstrung the Government’s legitimate attempts to maintain East Potomac Park” and accused her of being biased against the Trump administration. “More than being upset and furious right now, I am just deeply disappointed in the government,” Reyes reportedly told Justice Department lawyers at a hearing. When one attorney told the judge the government had done its best to gather information about the tree removal project, Reyes reportedly responded with: “You did not do your best. You did ⁠your absolute worst.”

Key Background

Trump previously announced work would begin on renovating the golf course in September. The current course has two nine-hold courses for easier difficulty levels, one par 72 18-hole course, and a mini-golf course. Green fees max out at $48 for the 18-hole course on weekends and holidays, but the easier courses cost even less. Trump, who is an avid golfer and investor in high-end golf clubs like his Trump Doral in Miami and Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, said he planned to replace the municipal course with a “championship-level” course. In his post on Sunday, Trump doubled down on this promise, writing the “United States Golf Association, PGA of America, and the PGA Tour have already been notified that they will soon have one of the Best and Most Spectacular Golf Courses anywhere in the World to put on their list of great places to play, and hold Major Events.” During his second term in office, Trump has been increasingly concerned with renovation projects and new monuments around the national capital, including building a new White House ballroom, a triumphal arch and renovating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.