The vistas of the US president Donald Trump’s golf canvas are broadening. He opened one in Aberdeen, Scotland, on Tuesday, the last day of his five-day trip to the sprawling Scottish countryside. “We’ll play it very quickly and then I go back to D.C. and we put out fires all over the world,” Trump bumped a line that captures the essence of Trumpism, brazen and pompous, during the opening ceremony. He owns 17 golf courses around the globe, including two in Scotland, his mother’s birthplace.
But just as the new golf pastures he has been annexing, allegations of him cheating when navigating 18 holes across wide-open spaces are mounting by the day. A raft of celebrities including Hollywood thespian Samuel L Jackson had accused him of cheating. Now two separate videos have surfaced of him bending the rules in broad daylight.
In one of the videos, released by Reuters, he is spotted discreetly adjusting the position of the ball on the fairway with his club in the Turnberry course, Scotland. In the background, an eyewitness is heard saying: “I can’t believe we’ve just watched the man cheating at f—ing golf,” an eyewitness is heard saying in the background. In another one, a caddie is seen stealthily dropping the ball, rather flicking it with the back of his palm, onto a favourable position. Trump is in a cart, left of the fairway.
🚨🏴⛳️ #WATCH — A caddie was seen dropping a ball for President Donald Trump during his Scotland golf trip.
Did he make par?pic.twitter.com/HgKuzHFXHa
— NUCLR GOLF (@NUCLRGOLF) July 27, 2025
He claims he has a handicap of 2.8 handicap, respectable in golf circles, he has once bragged: “I’ve played a lot, and I’ve played well… There’s very few people that can beat me in golf.” He once said he holds the amateur record on his own golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. In a story about celebrity golf handicaps, Forbes reported that his is a 4 but noted they have yet to see “a real signed scorecard.”
Those that have played with him refute. In 2016, Jackson alleged: “We clearly saw him hit a ball into a lake at Trump National [Golf Course], and his caddie told him he found it… he just took off running and next thing we know he says ‘I got it Mr. Trump!’”. Trump retorted: “I don’t cheat at golf but Samuel L. Jackson cheats—with his game he has no choice.”
“Donald Trump is the worst cheat ever and he doesn’t care who knows,” said author of the 2019 book “Commander in Cheat,” Rick Reilly. “:At Winged Foot, where Trump is a member, the caddies got so used to seeing him kick his ball back on to the fairway they came up with a nickname for him: Pele,” Reilly wrote in the book.
Rockstar Alice Cooper was more tongue in cheek. “The worst celebrity golf cheat? I wish I could tell you that. It would be a shocker. I played golf with Donald Trump one time. That’s all I’m going to say,” he said in a 2012 interview with Q Magazine.
Actor Anthony Anderson drips sarcasm. “Trump is a great golfer. I’m not going to say Trump cheats, he told Late Night With Seth Meyers in 2016. “His caddie cheats for him.”
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Suzann Pettersen, the former Europe Solheim Cup captain, who played with Trump in his first term, reflects on her experience. “He cheats like hell … so I don’t quite know how he is in business,” she said. “They say that if you cheat at golf, you cheat at business. I’m pretty sure he pays his caddie well, since no matter how far into the woods he hits the ball, it’s in the middle of the fairway when we get there.”
Worse, it is costing the taxpayers a fortune too. The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) estimated that Trump visited his properties an astounding 547 times during his first term in official capacity. It included 328 visits to Trump’s various golf courses.
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