If Trump fells 430 trees in the middle of a golf course, do they make a sound?

In attempting to turn a public space in DC into an enclave for elites, Trump is moving the US capital closer to Graceland

When is a tree not a tree? When it’s an obstacle to a par-3. If a tree falls in the middle of a golf course, does it make a sound? Yeah, probably. I wasn’t there, but I have to assume, based on my limited knowledge of the laws of physics.

What I do know is that Donald Trump’s crusade to clear more than 400 trees for the purposes of redeveloping East Potomac Golf Links into a championship-level course isn’t happening. For now.

The US district judge Ana Reyes shut down the project this week, though the administration claimed it had already cleared 430 of the planned 529 trees. This was after a May order from Reyes to require the White House to request approval for cutting down more than 10 trees. Reyes ordered a full stop to the tree clearing until 26 October, and threatened contempt of court if the administration doesn’t abide.

As is always the case with this president, he is attempting to assert some manner of control over a public asset. In this case, said asset is a golf course, which means he’s really invested. You might not be able to get him to stop staring at Jon Husted’s ass to sort out inflation, gas prices or the conflict in Iran, but you better believe he can put aside the senator from Ohio’s manly posterior long enough to sort out dramatic changes to a public golf course.

By seizing control of East Potomac Golf Links without any oversight or approval, the administration is essentially seizing that asset from the American people. By turning East Potomac into a championship-level course with an 18-hole layout, strategic hazards and expensive maintenance, Trump is inching the course away from being a public good and toward a private enclave for the elites.

Yes, I’m talking about golf here. I understand the irony of trying to separate this sport from elitism. This isn’t exactly soccer, which you could play in a backyard, the street or inside your parents’ house until you knock a ball through the flatscreen TV.

East Potomac is a popular course with the residents of DC. It has two nine-hole courses, an 18-hole course and a miniature golf area. The mini golf area has, as you’d hope, hazards shaped like national landmarks. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like there’s a way to putt a golf ball into Teddy Roosevelt’s mouth. At least not yet.

This is yet another instance of the priorities of one person taking precedent over the needs of literally anyone else. Trump clearly wants to play on a fancy, private golf course in DC. All three DC golf courses are publicly owned and operated by the National Park Service (though the park service has a partnership with the non-profit National Links Trust to renovate and operate the courses, which Trump tried to terminate in December of 2025). East Potomac, being the largest, has the most opportunity to be the shrine to our commander-in-chief’s favorite leisure obsession.

I can’t stop myself from picturing what the new East Potomac Golf Links would look like under Trump’s control. The first thing is, it would surely become Trump-East Potomac Golf Links, since a facility without his name on it is a facility wasted.

Would the mini golf course survive? Doubtful, as mini golf is strictly for poor people, and the PGA and the United States Golf Association would be too busy laughing at the windmill hazards to schedule the US Open there.

But if it stayed, I’d guess there’d be at least a few changes to the layout of the course. Perhaps you’d have to knock your ball past recreations of Trump Tower, a gold-plated toilet and the outstretched fist of the president himself.

As much as I care about the beautiful old trees being torn out for no reason, I’m equally flabbergasted by what’s at the core of this project – the lust to turn Washington DC into Graceland, or a worse, Donald Trump-themed version of that. Graceland is the final home of Elvis Presley, and has become a popular tourist attraction since his passing.

It’s a shrine to all things Elvis, full of merchandise and memorabilia. The area of Memphis around the home is designed to facilitate tourism and commerce.

I love commerce as much as the next red-blooded American, and DC has long been dependent on tourism to prop up its economy. But the lure of DC was American history, not one man’s vanity project.

Without oversight or lawful procedure, DC will become Graceland – a place for fans of a famous person to get their picture taken with his old shoes. As Trump’s tenure at the center of American life comes to an end in the next two years, he’s only going to accelerate his attempts to turn the nation’s capital into an extension of his own, very lucrative brand ventures.

There are already numerous golf courses with Trump’s name on them, so the novelty isn’t even that potent. It’s that this course is ours, and by that, I mean it belongs to the taxpayers of this country. Taking it and its history and molding it to his will is the fun of it for Donald Trump. That it isn’t his, but it can be, makes it a conquest worthy of his time. Like the Kennedy Center, he can put his name on it, he can try to change it, but it will never truly be his.

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist