President Donald Trump had claimed his granddaughter Kai was ‘really good’ at golf before she finished last in her LPGA debut. Photograph: Heute.at Creative Commons
This week I watched golf. The Pelican Women’s Championship has been a professional golf tournament in Florida since 2020 but, following its rebranding two years ago, it has tried to transcend being just another stop on the LPGA Tour.
Known now as ‘The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican’, the tournament has been attempting to attract bigger names, eyes and social media followers worthy of matching its more grandiose, corporate name that just rolls off the tongue.
This year, the tournament decided the best way to elevate its standing was to invite the 461st best ranked junior in the entire United States to make her LPGA debut. The 18-year-old school student did not win her place through a charity prize draw or a random raffle, but by virtue of being the granddaughter of President Donald Trump.
Kai Trump was handed one of the three special sponsor’s invitations to play at the tournament and despite signing with the University of Miami women’s golf team, her mother Vanessa Trump going out with Tiger Woods and boasting millions upon millions of social media followers, she was unremarkably miles out of her depth against some of the best golfers in the world.
In preparation for Trump’s professional debut, I lost an hour watching a YouTube vlog she had made titled ‘Playing Golf with President Donald Trump (My Grandpa)’, to get a sense of her and her golfing skills at the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia.
Fortunately, the US President was on hand to tell her audience of 1.36 million subscribers: “We have Kai, who’s done terrifically at golf. She’s a really good player and we’re going to play a little bit at a course in Virginia which I think is rated number one.”
The course is not rated number one. Instead, the Olde Farm and Kinloch Golf Club consistently vie for the number one spot on a variety of golfing leaderboards.
Trump also went on to point to a bridge at the club, describing it as “the oldest bridge in the United States.” But the oldest bridge in the country, the Frankford Avenue Bridge, is a 171-mile drive away from the Trump National Golf Club.
In between comments that “I just don’t miss fairways” and “hopefully, we get Putin and Zelenskyy to stop killing everybody”, the President was full of praise for his granddaughter’s form and striking of the golf ball.
Now, this is not to say that the President is one for hyperbole, but his swathe of spurious comments in this video alone did not offer the greatest confidence in his belief that his granddaughter was “a really good player”, let alone ready to compete in a professional event.
At the Pelican, Trump would finish last out of 108 and with a score of 18 over par overall, cut after the second round. The teenager endured a particularly difficult first day hitting 83, but responded with 75 in the next round. It is harsh to blame Trump for her performance as she understandably suffered with nerves, but it is unfair on her and the other professionals to have her competing at this level.
Trump’s presence is a major distraction from the success of Linn Grant, who played 52 successive holes without a bogey to win the tournament with relative ease. The Swede earned her second LPGA title, finishing 19 under par and three strokes clear of Jennifer Kupcho in second place.
It was a fitting triumph for Grant, who collected her trophy from Annika Sorenstam, after whom the tournament is named. Without its ludicrous corporate sponsor, it is uplifting that Grant can win a trophy rebranded in honour of her nation’s greatest golfer.
I admit that it is ironic that I write cynically about Trump’s inclusion at the tournament and, in turn, add a drop to the oceans of coverage. I also know that I, alongside thousands of others, would have only been truly aware of this tournament because Trump was playing.
This tournament has likely succeeded in bringing more people to the game, but are those new Trump-inspired viewers sustainable? I doubt it.
Welcoming celebrities and social media into a sport is not new and Jake Paul’s upcoming fight with Anthony Joshua is testament to the fact that money and fame can blur the lines between the exhibition and professional.
Yet, Trump is unlikely to go on to compete at the highest level in professional golf. Her spot in the tournament means a more deserving professional has missed out on the chance to experience a professional tournament and earn a small pocket of change in doing so.
When a tournament’s main showpiece is essentially a one-off gimmick act, why would those tuning in to support or even mock Trump at the Pelican choose to watch the season-ending event the CME Group Tour Championship later this week?
Charley Hull is the UK’s most famous female golfer and finished fourth in the tournament in Florida and yet she was asked more about Trump’s performance than her own. Would building the profiles of Hull, Jeeno Thitikul and Nelly Korda not engender a more engaged, longer-term audience for women’s golf?
The sport only needs to look at WNBA superstar and Gainbridge global ambassador Caitlin Clark, who was a celebrity guest for the pro-am tour at the Pelican, to see what can be achieved through the promotion of a sport’s real talent. Women’s basketball has been transformed in recent years because of players like Clark, not because an influencer was handed a few free throws in a professional game.
Golf is one of the world’s most popular sports, but rebranding tournaments with corporate-laden names and allowing social media personalities the chance to share the field and steal the limelight from its real talent is not going to help grow the women’s game naturally.
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Jack McRae writes... 