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He's never been either an apprentice or a man to miss the main chance. The latest example: only recently in mourning (or do I mean morning?) for his first wife, Ivana, he buried her on the golf course he owns in Bedminster, New Jersey. As the New York Post reported, "Not too far from the main clubhouse" " all too appropriately "below the backside of the first tee."
Oh, as ProPublica noted, the Trump family trust had already established a non-profit funeral business 20 miles away "exempt from the payment of any real estate taxes, rates and assessments or personal property taxes on lands and equipment dedicated to cemetery purposes." Now, it's possible that Bedminster could qualify, too, and conceivably get similar tax exemptions.
In other words, his long-rejected wife could all-too-literally prove to be par for the course when it comes to The Donald. He might even profit from her death. How thoroughly expectable, don't you think? And that's not the only way in which our former president has been out golfing lately, though not, of course, anywhere near his Mar-a-Lago club, which has been left, for the time being, to the FBI.
No, I was thinking of his latest Saudi escapade, this time with golf club in hand, as TomDispatch regular Robert Lipsyte, author most recently of SportsWorld: An American Dreamland, explains today. Tom
Being Anything But a Good Sport in Saudi Arabia
Even Trump Has a Hand in the Attempted Hijacking of Golf
Here's the big question in Jock Culture these days: Is the Kingdom of Golf being used to sportswash the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? Or is it the other way around? After all, what other major sport could use a sandstorm of Middle Eastern murder and human-rights abuses to obscure its own history of bigotry and greed? In fact, not since the 1936 Berlin Olympics was used to cosmeticize Nazi Germany's atrocities and promote Aryan superiority have sports and an otherwise despised government collaborated so blatantly to enhance their joint international standings.
Will it work this time?
The jury has been out since the new Saudi-funded LIV Tour made an early August stop at the Trump National Golf Course in Bedminster, New Jersey. (That LIV comes from the roman numerals for 54, the number of holes in one of its tourneys.) And I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that it was hosted by a former president so well known for flouting golf's rules that he earned the title Commander-in-Cheat for what, in the grand scheme of things, may be the least of his sins.
That tournament featured 10 of the top 50 players in the world. They were poached by the Saudis from the reigning century-old Professional Golfers Association (PGA), reportedly for hundreds of millions of dollars in signing bonuses and prize money. It was a shocking display for a pastime that has traded on its image of honesty and sportsmanship, not to mention an honor system that demands players turn themselves in for any infractions of the rules, rare in other athletic events where gamesmanship is less admired.
No wonder our former president hailed the tour as "a great thing for Saudi Arabia, for the image of Saudi Arabia. I think it's going to be an incredible investment from that standpoint, and that's more valuable than lots of other things because you can't buy that " even with billions of dollars."
The tournament was held soon after Joe Biden gave that already infamous fist bump to crown prince and de facto Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman. The two events radically raised bin Salman's prestige at a moment when, thanks to the war in Ukraine, oil money was just pouring into that kingdom, and helped sportswash the involvement of his countrymen in the 9/11 attacks, as well as the brutal murder and dismemberment of Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Deals They Couldn't Refuse
The buy-off money came from the reported $347 billion held by the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. Top golfers were lured into the LIV tour with sums that they couldn't refuse. A former number-one player on the PGA tour, Dustin Johnson, asked about the reported $125 million that brought him onto the Saudi tour, typically responded by citing "what's best for me and my family."
Phil Mickelson, the most famous of the LIV recruits and a long-time runner-up rival of Tiger Woods, justified his reported $200 million in a somewhat more nuanced fashion. In a February interview at the website The Fire Pit Collective, he admitted that Saudi government officials are "scary motherfuckers," have a "horrible record on human rights," and "execute people" for being gay." Yet he also insisted that the LIV was a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates."
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