Donald Trump vs. Golf Digest

If you haven't picked up your copy of Golf Digest (Ireland) this month, then you might want to consider it for two reasons:

1. Ireland's Top 100 courses are ranked.

2. Donald Trump gives an interview... and it is hilarious.

In terms of the rankings I blogged about them earlier in the month. (I compared the rankings over the past three/four years, here.)

In terms of the Trump interview, you HAVE to read it. I mean, seriously, this is astounding stuff. Six pages of sheer bewilderment as Donald shoots himself in the foot so often it's hard to believe the man can still walk.

There's a link to the interview at the end of this blog.

The interview was done by John Barton as a straight Q&A... something Donald Trump has since come out and objected to, saying he would have answered the questions differently if he'd known how the interview was going to be published. But that just makes the interview more interesting because you get Donald at his full blustering, uninhibited self.

It would appear that the man thinks of himself as some modern day Midas. That's not exactly news, I know, but something else also becomes abundantly clear as you read it. The man is desperate for recognition. And I mean desperate. Donald needs everything he does to be acknowledged as brilliant because his responses reek of self-doubt. He needs adulation. He craves it... for without it he is nothing. He says as much: "I believe you can do great things, but if people don't know about it, what difference does it make?"

If it wasn't so funny it would be sad.

And then there are the surveys and figures and stuff that he just seems to pluck out of the air as he goes along in order to justify what he has done or what he plans to do to or to make himself sound great. Does he think that we're going to believe him just because he keeps repeating himself? Evidently! The stuff with the environmental issues at his Aberdeen course is an obvious example. It's all complete guff.

At the end of the day, of course, he doesn't care what us small people think. That is made abundantly clear at the end of the piece where he says that golf should be aspirational, only for the successful. In other words, pretty much what everybody else in the game is trying to get away from... namely elitism. It's a shame that he thinks that way. It's ignorant. And arrogant.

But then, Donald is a trailblazer in his own unique way and he's making a success of things by buying cheap, stamping his name on it, building a fountain or two and whacking up the green fees.

Golf Digest points out at the start that Donald Trump is now a major player in golf... yes, that is true... but with his attitude and his hubris he's only highlighting to potential golfers everything that's wrong about the game. And I don't think that's good for golf.