Trump’s Takeover of Public DC Golf Courses Threatens to Erase “Model Public Playgrounds”

The Trump administration terminated a 50-year lease held by the National Links Trust on three public Washington, D.C. golf courses, prompting questions over the future of the courses and their accessibility and affordability to local residents.

As Martin Austermuhle explains in The 51st, one of the courses in question is a historically Black course that offered a singular place for Black golfers to play while other courses were still segregated. 

All three courses have struggled with maintenance and renovations in their decades-long histories, and the administration terminated the lease on the grounds that NLT was in default of its agreements. 

According to Austermuhle, “For now, the biggest victim of the lease termination will be the Rock Creek Golf Course, where construction on the planned and approved renovations – including a brand new clubhouse – has been stopped.” NLT says it will maintain public access to the other two courses despite the lease termination. However, it is ending a summer program for young caddies and will likely cancel its annual charity golf tournament. 

Craig Dean, the executive director of the Langston Golf Course Conservancy, worries that a Trump takeover of the courses could mean a steep rise in prices for players and the erasure of the course’s Black history.