The most significant chapter has arrived in the ongoing saga between the Trump administration and public golf courses in Washington, DC.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Ministry of the Interior revoked the lease of the nonprofit organization responsible for renovating several D.C. municipal golf courses, paving the way for the president to take control of the courses as part of a larger effort to reshape the capital’s public spaces.
The administration’s decision comes just weeks after the president himself floated the idea of ​​taking over Washington’s municipal golf courses from the National Links Trust, the nonprofit organization charged with restoring and maintaining them.
“If we do them, we’re going to do it really nicely,” Trump said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
The news marks the president’s most significant decision in the golf world in his second term, raising questions about the future of some of the nation’s most historic municipally owned golf courses. With this importance in mind, we answer some of the most important questions below.
Explain to me like I’m five years old: What’s going on?
The Trump administration has fired the people in charge of three taxpayer-owned golf courses in Washington DC (Rock Creek, East Potomac and Langston Hughes).
Based on the president’s words and reports from several media outlets, we believe the White House is planning to take control of these golf courses themselves. Trump, who owns more than a dozen golf courses around the world, has said he has big plans for D.C. public golf under his watch. He hosted his longtime course design counterpart, Tom Fazio, for a two-hour lunch meeting at the White House in November 2025 — though Fazio said they did not discuss plans for DC munis.
Who did the Trump administration get rid of?
of National Connections Trust, a non-profit organization created by a few golf lifers with the primary mission to “positively impact our community and change lives through affordable and accessible golf.” NLT won a 50-year contract to inspect, restore and renovate Washington DC’s public courses in 2020 from the first Trump White House.
How has the National Links Trust been?
Quite stellar! To date, NLT says it has more than doubled rounds played and course revenue at DC’s municipal courses since taking control of the lease from the Parks Department. It has also invested more than $8.5 million in “capital improvement projects” for the courses, while maintaining lower prices for peak time rates.
As part of the National Links Trust’s original agreement with the Parks Department, NLT also secured pro bono design work from some of the nation’s top golf course designers, including Gil Hanse, Tom Doak and Beau Welling, to handle the renovations of each of DC’s public courses. Work had just begun on the largest of those projects to date — a wholesale renovation of Rock Creek — when the Trump administration intervened.
More than golf access or tax revenue, however, NLT’s most prolific work has involved its commitment to maintaining the affordability and accessibility of the DC muni scene. Tee times at each of DC’s three municipal courses have remained well below market rates in the five years since NLT took over, coming in at less than $50 for 18 holes in most cases, while course maintenance decisions have aimed to ensure maintenance costs are low. In doing so, NLT appeared to prove it could have its cake and eat it too: sustainably improving the quality of D.C.’s public golf without increasing the cost to taxpayers.
If the NLT didn’t do much wrong, why did the Trump administration get rid of them?
This is a good question. The Department of the Interior emphasized $8.8 million in unpaid rent as its justification for revoking the National Links Trust lease – a categorization that the NLT vehemently denies.
According to the National Links Trust’s publicly available lease details, lease payments from NLT can be offset by course capital improvements. And, according to the National Links Trust’s statement on the administration’s decision, the National Park Service approved rent offsets for an amount equal to the Interior Department’s calculation.
Is there a better explanation for the decision that the Trump administration isn’t saying?
yes. Perhaps the simplest explanation for the administration’s decision involves President Trump himself.
The President is an avid golfer and an avid golf fan. He has also recently focused much of his attention on the physical legacy he will leave behind in the nation’s capital. renaming the Kennedy Center behind him, announcing the plans to build an Arc de Triompheand the demolition of the East Wing of the White House to build a new ballroom. (The latter of the three projects resulted in the administration’s first foray into the DC muni scene in 2025, when dump trucks delivered heaps of dirt and rubbish from East Wing Golf Links to East of the Potomac.)
The municipal golf courses will give Trump one more place to make his mark on the shape of Washington, DC in his final years in office.
What does the NLT say about the Trump administration’s decision?
Here are excerpts from the National Links Trust statement:
“We fundamentally disagree with the NLT administration’s characterization of the lease as being in arrears. We have always had a productive and cooperative working relationship with the National Park Service and have worked side by side on all aspects of our golf course operations and development projects.”
“On our ongoing Rock Creek Park rehabilitation project, construction has halted and our general contractor is in the process of demobilizing. After five years spent navigating complex federal permitting processes, this development is extremely disappointing to all who have supported the project.”
What’s changing in the DC muni scene right now?
In the near future, not much. The National Links Trust has signed on to administer DC municipalities during the transition period back to federal government control. It has also halted all progress on the Rock Creek renovation project.
What might change in the future?
It’s hard to say definitively, but it appears that any changes Trump operates in the muni scene could have downstream effects on DC players’ wallets. The average cost of a prime time at the president’s public access golf portfolio is about $300 for 18 holes, or more than six times the cost of the current time at three D.C. munis. Prices for the cheapest Trump public access course, Trump National in Los Angeles, start at $112.
The president has said he would lower the cost of the green fee for locals, even in the event of a fruitful redevelopment project at the East Potomac Links site, which has reportedly been the subject of Trump’s DC muni interests. Regardless of the eventual cost to locals, those at the National Links Trust agree theirs the vision for DC’s munis—the uncrowded, cost-conscious paradise of great golf—is likely to be forgotten.
“When you design a course with a $250 visitor fee and $50 home fee, it has to meet the expectations of the $250 golfer,” NLT founder Will Smith. said GOLF Michael Bamberger last month.
What else is President Trump doing golfing now?
In addition to his efforts on the muni stage, the president has taken a prominent role in pro golf in his second term in office, hosting regular meetings with Saudi leaders after leading LIV Golf and the PGA Tour, including a joint meeting at the White House in early 2025 that failed to generate any significant momentum toward peace between the two sides. Trump’s business ventures in the world of golf have also benefited from his time in the White House: In 2026, the PGA Tour will return to Trump Doral for the first time in a decade, while the president’s home course in Bedminster, NJ has been rumored as a possible LIV site.
The return of the Doral event represents a full-circle moment for the president, who saw PGA Tour golf leave the longtime Florida host in the midst of his first successful run for office a decade ago. In 2015, as Trump’s first presidential bid was making headlines for his comments about Mexican immigrants, Cadillac ended its sponsorship of the event held in Doral, and the Tour chose to leave Doral behind for a new venue. Then-PGA Tour chief Jay Monahan insisted the decision was driven solely by sponsor interest, but the optics were telling: The tour had dropped an event on a Trump course in favor of a tournament held in Mexico.
Now, in 2026, the PGA Tour is back in Doral… and Cadillac has once again signed on to serve as the event’s title sponsor.
