COMMANDER IN CHEAT
Rick Reilly
Hacette Books
Back in the day, Rick Reilly’s weekly sports column on the back page of Sports Illustrated was must read stuff. When he left that post for the glamour and spotlight of TV, I was disappointed but also intrigued.
Reilly’s wit and wordsmithing were only rivaled by the inestimable Dan Jenkins in the world of golf writing. His move to televised ESPN pieces was risky and, in the end, ultimately not satisfying. Something just didn’t click as well on the air as it did in the written word.
Reilly’s COMMANDER IN CHEAT appeared in 2019 and I was tempted to jump in to see if he had found his stroke again, but I didn’t.
Reading a book about Donald Trump was too distasteful to contemplate.
But the world has changed since then and many things will never be the same again.
In these turbulent times, at least one thing is certain- Reilly has got his swing grooved.
After three years of the Trump presidency, I thought that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to be surprised or shocked by further revelations of his coarse or corrupt behavior.
I was wrong.
The first chapter is called The Big Lie.
This big lie was Trump’s declaration that he had won 18 club championships in a tweet during a spat with fellow businessman Mark Cuban.
“ Golf Match? I’ve won 18 Club Championships including this weekend. @mcuban swings like a little girl with no power or talent. Mark’s a loser”
Donald J Trump,Twitter,March 19,2013
Reilly goes into the weeds to determine just how many, if any, of those claimed championships were legit. Here’s one instance.
“ More than one source described another time when Trump happened to walk into the Bedminster clubhouse just as a worker was putting up the name of the newly crowned senior club championship winner on a wooden plaque. Trump has been out of town and hadn’t played in the tournament, but when he saw the player’s name, he stopped the employee. ‘Hey, I beat that guy all the time. Put my name up there instead.’ The worker was flummoxed.
“Really,sir.”
“Yeah, yeah. I beat that guy constantly. I would have beaten him. Put my name up.”
Hard to believe but it’s true.
Reilly details myriad ways that the Donald cheats the game and others.
He shows how he falsifies his GHIN by cherry picking scores, entering slopes and rating that he hadn’t played, shaving strokes and outright fabrications.
Reilly recounts story after story from credible sources, players who have witnessed and been the victims of Trump’s cheating. Most were incredulous about the naked deceptions but some just shrugged it off.
He catalogs insight from employees at his golf courses, brave souls that dared to cross the boss in print, especially some caddies, who have christened him Pele, for his expert foot action for kicking wayward balls back into play.
He also lists some of the techniques Trump uses during a round:
The Invisible Dunk
The Quick Rake
The Ball switch
The variety of cheating and the persistent lying, on and off the golf course, that is documented here is breathtaking, even after three years of seeing and hearing it on TV and Twitter.
The essential point that Reilly makes is that Trump is compelled to win at everything, at any cost, and lying is the most reliable method to ensure ‘the win.’ This doesn’t come as a revelation to anyone but the specific and peculiar expressions of Trump’s manic compulsive behavior produce many laughs, and ultimately, a few tears.
Reilly opens the book with a quote from P.G Wodehouse.
“To find a man’s character, play golf with him.”
If you’re like me, suffering from Trump fatigue, and hold values and beliefs from the other end of life’s spectrum, you might hesitate to indulge. I did at first.
But read it. Rick Reilly is back at his side-splitting best as he lays bare the base behavior of our twisted first citizen.
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