At the moment, the media is spending a lot of time wondering how it should engage with Donald Trump, which battles it should fight and what it should simply let slide.
The answers may be painful for the media given that Trump seems to feel most relaxed when faced with the hostility of the press which is determined to hold him to account.
The uncomfortable solution may well be to bar themselves from Trump’s press conferences, therefore denying him the energising feeling he gets from kicking them around while dealing with their fearless, multi-part questions.
Beyond that, there is a lot of sifting to be done as they figure out what to get angry about in a world gone mad.
One of the issues which seems to be troubling people in the four weeks of Trump’s presidency is the now regular weekend bulletin that he is again on the golf course.
https://twitter.com/molly_knight/status/832727103686598657
His tweets about the golf-playing of Barack Obama are highlighted as evidence of his hypocrisy, as if hypocrisy is something that would bother a man who has done the things Donald Trump has done.
Donald Trump played golf again today and yesterday, here is a list of some of the times he complained about Obama doing the same thing. pic.twitter.com/Gnt2CUGhUb
— Kyle Glen (@KyleJGlen) February 19, 2017
This Monday morning routine intensified this week when it became known that, not only had Trump played golf at the weekend, he had played golf with Rory McIlroy.
McIlroy played 18 holes with Trump on Sunday morning at Trump International Golf Club in Florida. “He probably shot around an 80,” McIlroy told No Laying Up, “he’s a decent player for a guy in his 70s!’
This quote was punctuated with an exclamation mark which suggests it was the last but undoubtedly not the first bit of banter the pair engaged in during their round.
Naturally, McIlroy has taken some flak for the company he kept this weekend, but given the worldview of many of his fellow golfers on the PGA circuit, McIlroy might have found it a welcome relief to spend some time in the company of a man as refreshingly liberal and tolerant as Trump.
After all, despite his toneless attempts to appeal to the evangelical community, Trump never sounds less convincing than when he is insisting that God plays a big part in his life.
Rory McIlroy played 18 holes with @realDonaldTrump this weekend at Trump International https://t.co/kfVBvZHJNY pic.twitter.com/1s6onRK0g7
— No Laying Up (@NoLayingUp) February 20, 2017
Golf, on the other hand, does play a big part in his life and perhaps we need to be relaxed about this.
It is understandable if people want to call out McIlroy for his decision, but maybe we should be thankful that Trump is playing golf as much as possible, as he can probably do less trouble out on the track.
So we should praise McIlroy for this selfless act, this gesture which is sure to damage his credibility, but may have briefly made the world a safer place.
Maybe he enjoyed himself out there in the fourball with the president and a golfing buddy of Trump’s called Rich Levine.
As it becomes clear that Trump is not going to one of the great energetic presidents, it will become increasingly important that he uses his free time – or what we might have to call ‘time’ – in the least damaging way possible.
Other presidents have taken a relaxed approach to the job. Ronald Reagan once announced a new policy initiative with the words, “I’ve really been burning the midday oil on this one.”
Trump can’t do self-deprecation, but his press conference last Thursday made it clear that he is essentially leading the life of a student, a freelance writer or Ronald Reagan and spending most of his waking hours watching television.
However, he isn’t watching Pointless or Only Connect but rolling news, becoming increasingly enraged and demented with every slight and failure to acknowledge the glory of his presidency.
The essence of golf is that it takes all this rage, resentment and self-obsession and focuses it on the game. “It’s a disease,” was how Dean Martin’s manager described golf. Martin insisted a golf net was put up on whatever sound stage he was working on and he would spend every minute he could there or on the course.
If Trump could do the same, that would be ideal. Some might worry what it would mean if Steve Bannon was left alone in charge, but the idea that the White House is run by President Bannon has already angered Trump, and perhaps with Trump on the golf course Bannon will take things too far and become former President Bannon.
I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it. Some FAKE NEWS media, in order to marginalize, lies!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2017
If Trump played less golf, he wouldn’t spend those spare hours studying the various proposals for a replacement to Obamacare or working out a sophisticated substitute for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. With this extra time, he would tweet and shout at the television, enrage China or Iran and threaten us all.
More importantly, if he is at home in the White House surrounded by the industrious scumweasels who are so eager to impress him, anything is possible.
Ideally, he would play golf every day, not just on weekends, and the world would accept that, among the many marginal calls we have to make about the least worst options during his presidency, keeping Trump out on the course, bantering away is the best we can hope for.
But it will be painful. It is clear that golf is going to be central to everything that takes place in this administration. When the Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull wanted to get hold of Trump after his election victory, he got his number from Greg Norman.
Trump wrongly cited Bernhard Langer as a source when making his fictitious claims about widespread voter fraud, while Ernie Els was among the presidential party when Trump played golf last weekend with the Japanese prime minister Shinzo.
The late great Ronnie Drew was said to have once declared that ‘everyone who plays golf is a c***’, a sweeping statement which, like all generalisations, might have taken out a few innocent bystanders.
Some might dispute these words, but it gets harder and harder to argue with the central point. When Els was asked to defend his round with Trump, he made no apologies. “He’s a proper golfer,” he said. I think we all know what he means.
