President Trump loves golf, and taxpayers are the ones footing the bill for it. His frequent trips to private clubs come with a hefty price tag that most Americans never fully see or hear about.
This is not a new fight. Trump spent years mocking former President Obama on social media for playing too much golf while running the country and racking up travel expenses.
Now the roles have quietly flipped, and the receipts tell a very different story. Presidential golf habits, it turns out, come with far more hidden costs than most people ever realize.
The latest estimate of Trump’s golf costs
An independent tracker called Is Trump Golfing Today currently estimates President Trump’s second-term golf-related travel and security costs at about $119 million as of Sept. 5, 2026. The tracker bases its estimate on Trump’s public schedule, flight tracking, and cost assumptions drawn from a 2019 Government Accountability Office report.
The estimate has renewed comparisons with former President Barack Obama, whom Trump repeatedly criticized for playing golf while in office. Trump said during his 2016 campaign that he would not have time to play golf because he would be focused on working for Americans.
Trump has continued to make frequent visits to golf properties during his second term. The current tracker counts 161 visits to Trump golf properties during his second term, although it cautions that a visit does not necessarily mean Trump played golf.
Where the estimated costs come from
Earlier August reporting based on the independent tracker estimated roughly $80.2 million in costs associated with 59 days at Mar-a-Lago and West Palm Beach, $13.6 million for 34 days at Bedminster, about $10 million for Trump’s five-day Scotland trip, and roughly $7 million for 47 days at his Washington-area golf course.
These figures are estimates rather than individual federal audits of each trip. The methodology applies cost assumptions from government travel data, including the 2019 GAO review of presidential travel, to Trump’s later golf-property visits.
The current tracker has since revised its second-term estimate to about $119 million as of Sept. 5, 2026, so the earlier $151.1 million running total should not be presented as the current figure.
How presidential travel drives costs
A 2019 Government Accountability Office analysis estimated Air Force One’s operating cost at about $273,063 per flight hour when examining presidential travel expenses.
Presidential travel can also require supporting aircraft, boats, and other transportation resources. For four Trump trips to Mar-a-Lago in 2017, the GAO found about $13.6 million in federal costs, including aircraft operations, Coast Guard boats, and temporary-duty expenses for personnel.
Security arrangements can include Coast Guard and other law-enforcement resources, but the specific resources used can vary from one presidential visit to another.
Obama’s golf habit by the numbers
Former President Barack Obama played 333 rounds of golf during his 2 terms in office, according to longtime White House correspondent Mark Knoller’s tally.
That averages roughly 41 rounds per year. The 333-round total does not mean Obama spent 41.6% of his presidency golfing. A 2024 analysis estimated that the 333 rounds represented about 3% of his total time in office.
Obama played at courses in several locations, including Joint Base Andrews, but the available record does not support the claim that most of his rounds occurred there.
The Twitter history behind this debate
Trump publicly criticized Obama’s frequent golfing habit again and again between the years 2011 and 2016, according to a running online count compiled by the popular sports-focused outlet SB Nation during that entire stretch.
He posted about the golfing topic online at least 27 separate times during that entire 6-year stretch, frequently labeling Obama a habitual vacationer who supposedly ignored hardworking Americans back home throughout the entire process.
At a 2015 campaign rally, Trump told a crowd of enthusiastic supporters that Obama had already played roughly 250 rounds of golf while serving as the sitting United States president.
Why Trump’s golf trips can cost more
Trump has frequently played golf or visited properties he owns, including clubs in Florida, New Jersey, and Virginia. Trips to distant private properties can require presidential aircraft, supporting transportation, and extensive security operations.
A Government Accountability Office review found that a February 2013 presidential trip involving Chicago and Palm Beach cost about $3.6 million in major Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security expenses. The trip included a vacation stop in Florida and a round of golf with Tiger Woods.
Presidential travel can also generate payments for lodging, transportation, and other support services. Some expenses at Trump properties have involved government personnel and security operations, although the full amount attributable directly to Trump’s businesses has not been established by any single current federal audit.
Transparency gaps in presidential travel
The White House currently faces no strict legal requirement to publicly release the exact costs of golf trips, since most presidential travel records fall outside the standard Freedom of Information Act disclosure rules in place today.
Independent trackers, instead, must rely heavily on public flight data, official White House pool reports, and much older government audits to carefully build their running cost estimates over time, month by month, and every year.
Some financial analysts now project that Trump could soon reach a total of $300 million in golf-related spending before his current 2nd term in office finally comes to a complete and total end.
Critics argue that the same taxpayer money could instead directly support everyday struggling Americans currently dealing with rising grocery, housing, and gasoline prices across so many communities nationwide throughout this entire difficult economic year all alone.
Supporters counter that strong protective security surrounding any sitting president remains completely and totally nonnegotiable, regardless of which particular hobby or pastime a sitting commander in chief personally happens to truly and genuinely enjoy most.
TL;DR
- An independent tracker estimates Trump’s second-term golf-property travel and security costs at about $119 million as of Sept. 5, 2026.
- The tracker counts 161 visits to Trump golf properties during his second term, including 59 days involving Mar-a-Lago.
- The $273,063 Air Force One figure comes from the cost methodology used in a 2019 GAO analysis and is not a current per-flight invoice.
- Obama played 333 rounds of golf during his 2 terms in office.
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This article was made with AI assistance and human editing.
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