Pitching for The Open to be given to Trump is politically incorrect and must be ruled out of bounds

When Keir Starmer’s government looked for inducements to make Donald Trump go easy on the UK, the US President’s sporting obsession was an obvious place to start.

‘Inducements’ might seem a soft way of describing the government’s apparent hope that the Royal and Ancient will award the 2028 Open Championship to Trump’s Turnberry Course in Scotland. ‘Bribe’ would be a pithier term if one of the jewels of the British sporting summer were handed to an unpredictable foreign leader as a quid pro quo.

If Trump is the new self-appointed king of America, he has long been golf’s dark emperor. Before his true nature revealed itself in politics, it was evident on America’s fairways and greens. There is synergy between those worlds. The Mar-a-Lago course, in Palm Beach, Florida, is Trump’s outdoor Oval Office – a place to schmooze oligarchs and world leaders. It’s where he goes, many political commentators suspect, to be told what to think.

From close personal experience, the American sportswriter Rick Reilly began his book ‘Commander in Cheat – How Golf Explains Trump’ – with a PG Wodehouse line: “To find a man’s character, play golf with him.”

That was in 2019. Now, in his second term, the symbiosis between Trump and golf not only deepens but spreads to international diplomacy.

There is a schism in the sport between the traditional American tour and LIV Golf – a breakaway punk version backed by Saudi sovereign wealth. The shift from sponsorship to outright ownership by the Saudis sent a rocket through country club and corporate America. Who better to bring the two sides together than a golf mad President who promises peace deals in 24 hours? On the campaign trail, at any rate.

Good luck with finding a top pro-golfer who has spoken out against Trump. Most are making too much money to risk offending the game’s unofficial overlord. So tight are the connections that the world’s most famous player Tiger Woods is in a relationship with an ex-member of the Trump family. Vanessa Trump was married to Donald Trump jnr for 13 years.

In February, Woods joined execs from the Professional Golfers’ Association at the White House to discuss the American tour’s relationship with LIV Golf. Around Woods’ neck was the Presidential Medal of Freedom Trump bestowed on him in his first term.

Those signals were picked up by Labour’s transatlantic radar. Hence, no doubt, the King’s references to golf in the invitation to Trump for a second state visit. The Turnberry story keeps popping up in Britain and is never convincingly knocked down.

Leaning on the R&A to pick Turnberry from the hat for 2028 would feel like an easy win for proponents of realpolitik in Starmer’s government. Open Championships are already allocated until 2027. The beauty of handing one to Turnberry in 2028, the government might think, is that it will buy British trade negotiators three whole years of grace.

If they can offer Trump an “unprecedented” second state visit, and negotiate with him so subserviently, who cares about a four-day golf tournament? Well, we do. First, because a government that puts a ribbon round a cherished event and gifts it for the private gain of the Trump empire - in return for favours unspecified - is heading down the bribery path. It’s also risky. If golf refuses to play ball – or can’t because of Turnberry’s logistical limitations – they risk stoking Trump’s vindictiveness.

The official government line is that it’s the R&A’s job to bestow Open Championships. But we know Trump has repeatedly asked for it to go to Turnberry and that government officials have made contact with the R&A to discuss it in theoretical terms.

One was quoted by the BBC as saying that monitoring hosting rights was “part of the normal business of government.”

The 800-acre Turnberry estate in Ayrshire cost Trump £39m 11 years ago and last staged the Open in 2009. That tournament was watched live by 120,000 fans. This year’s Open at Royal Portrush will draw 278,000. Turnberry has been left behind by The Open’s commercial growth. Which is another problem for the government. Bending The Open’s business plan to fit Trump’s will, with no guarantee of a lasting return on trade or tariffs, might not be as smart as it sounds.

World sport is already being annexed in chunks by nation states. Fifa and the International Olympic Committee now routinely award hosting rights to authoritarian regimes. Mention of the 2018 men’s World Cup and Sochi Winter Games in Russia – or the 2022 Qatar World Cup and the 2034 one in Saudi Arabia – seals the argument that sport is, and was, always a tool of politics.

As Wodehouse said, though: by sport ye shall know them. In his excellent book Reilly explains why he felt compelled to catalogue Trump’s alleged cheating on golf courses: “Somebody should point out that the way Trump does golf is sort of the way he does a presidency, which is to operate as though the rules are for other people.”

A ‘mere’ Sports Illustrated scribe, Reilly plays a round of golf with Trump at a New York course and wonders why his playing partner keeps giving him false introductions to members. “This is Rick. He’s the president of Sports Illustrated,” and, “This is Rick. He publishes Sports Illustrated.”

Reilly pulls him up on it. “Donald, why are you lying about me.”

And Trump gives an answer that applies just as well in his political career. He says: “Sounds better.”

Photograph: Robert Perry/Getty Images