Reilly Rick - Commander in cheat: how golf explains Trump

To find a mans true character, play golf with him.

P. G. W ODEHOUSE

IN THE 30 YEARS Ive known Donald Trump, I never believed anything he said, but the wink-wink of it was that I never thought he believed any of it either. He was like your crazy uncle at Thanksgiving who sits in the living room telling the kids whoppers about punching Sinatra while the parents all roll their eyes in the kitchen. He was a fun, full-of-it fabulist.

One time, for instance, I was in his office in Trump Tower. He pulled a yellow laminated card out of his wallet and slapped it down on his massive desk like a fourth ace.

Look at that! he said. Only nine people in the world have that!

The card read: Bearer Eats Free at Any McDonalds Worldwide.

Its only me, Mother Teresa, and Michael Jordan! he crowed.

I pictured Mother Teresa, at that very moment, pulling into the drive-thru at the Calcutta McDonalds, rolling down the window, leaning her habit out, and saying, I need 10,000 double cheeseburgers, please.

I liked Trump the way I liked Batman. He was what eight-year-old me thought a gazillionaire should be likehis name in 10-foot-high letters on skyscrapers and on giant jets, hot and cold running blondes hanging on each arm, $1,000 bills sticking out of his socks.

So I knew the whole running for president thing had to have an angle. Theres always an angle. The trick was figuring out what it was.

The first time I met Donald Trump, way back when, I was the back-page columnist at Sports Illustrated. I was playing in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am when he came at me with a bible-salesman grin and a short-fingered hand to shake. His wife, Marla Maples, was smiling at me, too.

Uh-oh, I thought. Whats this?

Youre my favorite writer! Trump bellowed. I love your stuff. Tell him, Marla!

He does! she said. Look! And she pulled out of her purse a column Id written. Okay, there was the set-up. What was the hook?

So, he said, when are you going to write about ME?

Ahh, there it was.

No problem. Trump was the most accessible, bombastic, and quotable businessman in the world. Why would I turn that down? So when I set out to write my golf book Whos Your Caddy?in which I would caddy for 12 golf legends, celebrities, and oddballsI asked if he wanted to be a chapter. Absolutely! he said.

When the day came, he didnt have anybody to play with, so he announced that I wouldnt be caddying for him, Id be playing with him. Okay, you take what you can get. We played his Trump National Golf Club Westchester in Briarcliff Manor, New York, and it was like spending the day in a hyperbole hurricane.

Trump didnt just lie nonstop about himself that day. He lied nonstop about ME. Hed go up to some member and say, This is Rick. Hes the president of Sports Illustrated. The guy would reach out to shake my hesitant hand, but by then Trump had dragged me forward to the next member. Or secretary. Or chef. This is Rick. He publishes Sports Illustrated. Before I could object, hed go, And this is Chef. He was voted Best Hamburger Chef in the world! And the poor chef would look at me and shake his head with a helpless no, same as me.

When we were alone, I finally said, Donald, why are you lying about me?

Sounds better, he said.

Sounding better is Trumps m.o. It colors everything he says and does. The truth doesnt break an egg with Trump. Its all about how it sounds, how it looks, and the fact checkers can go run a 100-yard dash in a 50-yard gym.

A friend of mine had dinner with Trump and his wife, Melania, in 2015, when this whole presidential thing was starting to simmer. The husbands and wives had veered off into separate conversations. The wife said, You have a lovely accent, Melania. Where are you from?

Slovenia, she said.

Trump, in mid-sentence, turned to her and interjected: Say Austria. Sounds better.

But when I read The Big Lie, it nearly made me spit out my Cheerios. It was a tweet hed originally posted in 2013, but I hadnt read it until his campaign began. Trump was embroiled in one of his hundreds of celebrity feuds, this one with somebody in his weight classDallas Mavericks owner and billionaire sports fan Mark Cuban. Cuban had dissed him on some forgettable TV show years before. I think I said, I can write a bigger check than Trump right now and not even know it was missing, Cuban remembers.

Trump seethed about it. Trump can dish out the insults by the steam shovel but he cant take a teaspoonful back. His rule is: When Im attacked, I fight back 10 times harder. He vowed lifetime revenge on Cuban that day.

Thats when he challenged Cuban.

Golf match? Ive won 18 Club Championships including this weekend. @mcuban swings like a little girl with no power or talent. Marks a loser

Donald J. Trump, Twitter, March 19, 2013

Eighteen championships? Thats like an NFL quarterback telling you hes won 18 Super Bowls. Its preposterous. Its a Macys Thanksgiving Day float of a lie. Besides, Trump had already given away his little secret of how he does it that day at Westchester. Whenever I open a new golf course, he told me, I play the official opening round and then I just call that the first club championship. There you go! Im the first club champion! Thats off the record, of course.

You gotta admit: Its sleazy, its morally bankrupt, but its pretty clever.

I did keep it off the record, for years. But then he kept bludgeoning people over the head with it.