NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"Reilly pokes more holes in Trump's claims than there are sand traps on all of his courses combined. It is by turns amusing and alarming."— The New Yorker
"Golf is the spine of this shocking, wildly humorous book, but humanity is its flesh and spirit." — Chicago Sun-Times
"Every one of Trump's most disgusting qualities surfaces in golf." — The Ringer
An outrageous indictment of Donald Trump's appalling behavior when it comes to golf — on and off the green — and what it reveals about his character.
Donald Trump loves golf. He loves to play it, buy it, build it, and operate it. He owns 14 courses around the world and runs another five, all of which he insists are the best on the planet. He also claims he's a 3 handicap, almost never loses, and has won an astonishing 18 club championships.
How much of all that is true? Almost none of it, acclaimed sportswriter Rick Reilly reveals in this unsparing look at Trump in the world of golf.
Based on Reilly's own experiences with Trump as well as interviews with over 100 golf pros, amateurs, developers, and caddies, Commander in Cheat is a startling and at times hilarious indictment of Trump and his golf game. You'll learn how Trump cheats (sometimes with the help of his caddies and Secret Service agents), lies about his scores (the "Trump Bump"), tells whoppers about the rank of his courses and their worth (declaring that every one of them is worth $50 million), and tramples the etiquette of the game (driving on greens doesn't help). Trump doesn't brag so much, though, about the golf contractors he stiffs, the course neighbors he intimidates, or the way his golf decisions wind up infecting his political ones.
For Trump, it's always about winning. To do it, he uses the tricks he picked up from the hustlers at the public course where he learned the game as a college kid, and then polished as one of the most bombastic businessmen of our time. As Reilly writes, "Golf is like bicycle shorts. It reveals a lot about a man." Commander in Cheat "paints a side-splitting portrait of a congenital cheater" (Esquire), revealing all kinds of unsightly truths Trump has been hiding.
ISBN-13: 9780316528030
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: Hachette Books
Publication Date: 04-07-2020
Pages: 272
Product Dimensions: 5.45(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.95(d)
Currently a screenwriter and author, Rick Reilly for years wrote for Sports Illustrated and appeared on and wrote for ESPN. In addition to being voted the NSMA National Sportswriter of the Year eleven times, he has also been recognized with the Damon Runyon Award for Outstanding Contributions to Journalism. USA Today called him, "the closest thing sportswriting ever had to a rock star."
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 The Big Lie 1
Chapter 2 You Ain't No Ballerina 13
Chapter 3 The Kid with the Big Shekels 24
Chapter 4 Pele 36
Chapter 5 Buy, Lie, and Cry 54
Chapter 6 The Great Muckle Gype 76
Chapter 7 Tacky Is as Tacky Does 93
Chapter 8 Your Day in Trumpland 113
Chapter 9 Mo Trump Mo Problems 132
Chapter 10 One Good Punch 148
Chapter 11 Trump v. Obama 165
Chapter 12 Professional Pest 175
Chapter 13 Ewwwww 193
Chapter 14 Who's Your Caddies? 206
Chapter 15 Little Ball, Big Ball 216
Chapter 16 The Stain 237
Afterword 243
Acknowledgments 251