{"id":351824,"date":"2025-12-16T09:58:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T09:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/351824\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T09:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T09:58:09","slug":"a-travis-ty-in-the-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/351824\/","title":{"rendered":"A Travis-ty In The Making"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Walter Travis-designed East Potomac in better times (National Links Trust)<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s been nice to see several majors and a Ryder Cup return since Bethpage State Park\u2019s rebirth, an even more incredible feat has been the sustained maintenance, prestige, revitalized sense of community, and retention of affordable green fees in the two decades since 2002\u2019s U.S. Open. The same goes for San Diego\u2019s Torrey Pines, where hosting the 2008 U.S. Open followed decades of city neglect, mediocre conditions, and lack of appreciation for a civic gem. Neither of those two facilities ever had the design potential of Walter Travis\u2019 East Potomac, which could give a major American city a sophisticated and ingenious design befitting its remarkable setting. <\/p>\n

Bringing back three neglected community courses has been the dream and multi-year work of the National Links Trust\u2019s co-founders Will Smith and Mike McCartin<\/a>. But barring a significant change in perspective over the next two weeks, the efforts of the NLT are about to die at the hands of the Trump Administration after top officials set their sights on giving President Donald Trump a golf project to go with other renovations initiated since he took office in January.<\/p>\n

According to the <\/a>Wall Street Journal\u2019s<\/a> Meridith McGraw<\/a>, \u201cthe Trump administration spotted an opening for the golf-loving president to get personally involved in the renovations\u201d of the three facilities the NLT took over under a long-term lease from the Department of the Interior, which is currently led by Secretary Doug Burgum. Three architects have signed up for the effort on a pro-bono basis: Gil Hanse at Rock Creek (where Phase I of a planned renovation just got underway), Beau Welling (Langston), and Tom Doak (East Potomac).<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the spring, National Links Trust officials were approached by William Doffermyre\u2014now the Interior Department\u2019s solicitor general\u2014about bringing Trump into the nonprofit\u2019s projects and fundraising,\u201d McGraw writes. \u201cOn Aug. 1, Trump convened a meeting with some of his top advisers\u2014including U.S. attorney and frequent golf partner Jay Clayton, former Trump administration official Johnny DeStefano, then-senior adviser Taylor Budowich, and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles\u2014to review the future of the city\u2019s public courses. According to people with direct knowledge of the meeting, Burgum pitched the idea of creating a professional-level course. The proposed new name: Washington National Golf Course.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>East Potomac Golf Links in relation to Washington D.C. (Google Earth)<\/p>\n

The situation has quietly spiraled from there and only gained national attention when East Wing excavation work was dumped at East Potomac. Now, the government is moving to declare NLT in default on the 50-year lease for unspecified reasons. <\/p>\n

All of this played out quietly to the credit of the National Links Trust until the Journal story dropped on Saturday. It revealed the last-ditch efforts by NLT to convince Trump to allow the projects and leases to continue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a bid to strengthen ties with the president, the National Links Trust recently presented the Trump administration with a proposal, titled \u2018Make DC Golf Great Again,\u2019 that included ideas such as a special oversight board, according to people familiar with the matter,\u201d writes McGraw. \u201cThe group proposed that the board be chaired by the president and include former PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh, Augusta National Golf Club Chairman Fred Ridley, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, and professional golfer Tiger Woods. The proposal has been shared with the Interior Department, the people said.\u201d<\/p>\n

The powerhouse committee idea was reportedly hatched by Waugh, who was involved in a successful community course-resuscitation project in West Palm Beach and has dealt with Trump for years, dating to his CEO years as head of Deutsche Bank\u2019s \u201cAmericas\u201d division. Monahan has long dealt with Trump as both Deputy Commissioner and then as the PGA Tour\u2019s leader. But it\u2019s the inclusion of Ridley and Woods that leaps out as the strongest statement imaginable under the dire circumstances. <\/p>\n

According to the <\/a>Washington Post\u2019s<\/a> Rick Maese in a story<\/a> that also dropped on Saturday, the administration has been striking out trying to line up architects to give Trump the type of tournament-ready redesign that suits his, uh, taste. <\/p>\n

\u201cEd Russo, a Trump environmental consultant, told Front Office Sports that<\/a> Tiger Woods was \u201con board\u201d to help redesign Langston,\u201d Maese writes. \u201cIn an email, Welling told The Washington Post that \u2018TGR Design has not been involved\u2019 in any Langston work.\u201d <\/p>\n

Even with Doak working for free on a complex reversible design with drainage issues that he is perfectly suited to refurbish and embellish\u2014after creating such a course at Forest Dunes in Michigan\u2014Trump wants to redesign the course for a Ryder Cup, according to Maese\u2019s story. <\/p>\n

The leading firm of our time, Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, passed, citing prior commitments.<\/p>\n

So Trump has landed, inevitably so, on Tom Fazio. The two men recently held a three-hour lunch, detailed by Michael Bamberger<\/a>. If anyone can deliver the kind of tacky, expensive, no-one-asked-for-this-boring-blur-of-a-course-that-destroys-a-more-refined-vision, it\u2019s Fazio. <\/p>\n

Best known for creating courses that move homesites instead of hearts and minds, Fazio has long held disdain for the great works of the early century by architects like Travis, who was a key early pioneer in righting early 20th-century architecture. Fazio referred to the \u201cso-called\u201d classic courses in his sleep-inducing coffee table book, yet has made millions doing substance-free knock-offs of the MacKenzie\u2019s and Thomas\u2019s who laid the groundwork for him to profit off the game. Public golf certainly isn\u2019t his thing\u2014though he\u2019s mysteriously been part of Augusta National\u2019s effort to revitalize \u201cThe Patch\u201d despite having shown little interest in the affordable daily fee game. As a tournament course architect, Fazio\u2019s many infamous efforts to update great tournament venues have been undone and repaired at the likes of Oak Hill, Inverness, Winged Foot, and, well, the list is long. <\/p>\n

Whatever Fazio might do at East Potomac will be expensive and vapid, with the costs passed along to golfers. And if history is any indication, the work will need to be livened up or repaired in a few years at taxpayer expense. And to build his style of containment mounding dreck, the current 36-holes featuring facilities perfect for beginners will need to be eliminated to fit in one tournament-ready 18-holer.<\/p>\n

As dramatic as the architectural details of East Potomac were\u2014explained in beautiful detail by McCartin in a brilliant thesis that formed the basis of the project<\/a>\u2014the Trump-and-friends story is all a distraction from the bigger-picture consequences if the National Links Trust gets booted. The foundation laid by the rejuvenated Bethpages and Torrey Pines\u2019 of the world gave a country rich in neglected public works a chance to go back and to revitalize both golf courses and communities around them. The National Links Trust effort has been driven by a desire to bring back architectural gems for the masses without needing the design compromises that come with building courses for the professional game and 340-yard drives.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>East Potomac then, now and as proposed to be restored by Michael McCartin<\/p>\n

Not only will a lease termination project destroy the National Links Trust\u2019s mission of restoring three affordable courses in the Washington D.C. area, but the default of NLT\u2019s 50-year lease will also damage the restoration momentum that\u2019s taking eyesores and making them local centerpieces. All at a time when the sport is thriving in part because post-pandemic Americans finally came to recognize the value of refined green spaces created by public works projects.<\/p>\n

Without thoughtful restorations and long-term maintenance infrastructure put in place for so many deteriorating century-old projects, the many East Potomac comparable facilities will continue to be vulnerable to takeovers, shutdowns, or worse as we learned last week, data centers. <\/p>\n

Through NLT\u2019s efforts both in Washington D.C. and elsewhere in helping municipalities understand how to fix classic gems, they are doing a thankless job that no other golf organization dared to take on: raising the awareness and the funds to do what government has been unable to accomplish. The NLT is building something extraordinary that will leave the game in a better place and inspire new efforts across the country. <\/p>\n

That Fred Ridley and Tiger Woods have privately sided with the National Links Trust should be a signal to the Trump administration that they\u2019re over the skis on this one. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Walter Travis-designed East Potomac in better times (National Links Trust) While it\u2019s been nice to see several majors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-351824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}