How Many Club Championships Has Donald Trump Reportedly Won?

Donald Trump took up golf at Fordham University, and in his 2005 book, The Best Golf Advice I Ever Received, he wrote: "For me and millions of people – men, women, young and old around the world – golf is more than a game. It is a passion”.

The real estate developer started building and buying golf clubs and resorts in 1999. The Trump Organisation now owns 17 golf clubs with several more under construction.

Trump, according to Jack Nicklaus, “loves the game of golf more than he loves money". Trump’s golf portfolio of properties has cumulatively racked up losses of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Nicklaus has played with Trump and rates him “probably the best player” of the Presidents that he has golfed with.

“Trump plays pretty well,” the 18-time Major winner has said. “He plays a little bit like I do. He doesn’t really ever finish many holes. But he can hit the ball, and he goes out and plays and just enjoys it. But he’s won several club championships. He can play.”

‘Several’ is understating it according to the man himself.

During a Thanksgiving 2025 video call with U.S. military members, President Trump said: “I know a lot about golf. I’ve won 38 club championships, and I don’t get to practice much. I won one last year.”

“I won a club championship at a big club, beating a 27-year-old kid. I said, ‘You know, I’m decades older than you.’ But I said, ‘The fairway doesn’t know how old you are as you walk up the middle and he’s in the rough.’ And, uh, I’ve been a good golfer over the years.”

“You know, club championships are our Majors, you know that, most people can’t play in them, they won’t. We’re talking about no strokes or anything else.”

“So I’m a very low handicap, and I’ve won 38 of them legitimately, every one legitimately. It has to be legitimate because you have a lot of people following you with club championships."

Some may quibble at just exactly how many people, if any, come out to watch a club championship. Others at Trump’s contention that he does not practice much, considering he had played golf on 76 of the 312 days of his second presidency up to that point.

Others may wonder why Trump felt the need to say ‘legitimately’. That is because there is controversy about the number of championship wins Trump claims, and also the way in which he won them, particularly as he only seems to win these at clubs he owns.

Stretching the definition

What Trump terms as a club championship may also not match the usual usage of the term. For many, the club championship is a single annual tournament to find the best golfer in the club, played without handicaps.

But the President also includes senior and super senior club championships in his tally, and considers several other types of club competition as championships as well.

He is named as the 2018 champion of Trump International West Palm Beach despite not playing in the club championship. Instead he challenged the winner to a match over nine holes.

When he won this, in allegedly controversial circumstances after a shot of his which was seen entering lake was ‘found’ instead on the green, he declared himself the co-champion. The club’s honours board reflects this.

He won the Trump International West Palm Beach Senior Championship of 2023 despite not playing in the first round of the two-round event. Instead he declared that a score he said he had made earlier in the week would act as his first round score.

This score, under the modified Stableford scoring system being used, was 40, or five points better than anyone had managed in the first round.

Golf writer Michael Bamberger has played several rounds of golf with Trump. While making it clear that he was no Trump supporter politically, he said the President “is a lot of fun to play golf with. Good golfer, good storyteller, plays fast and he pays attention to his playing partners.”

He also wrote that Trump “lies habitually about his score. He takes mulligans whenever he feels like it. It’s really casual golf masquerading as serious golf.”

Ernie Els has also played with The President several times and witnessed Trump make a hole in one on the 181-yard 7th hole at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.

Els has said: “I've played with many, many presidents and prime ministers, heads of state around the globe. I still have to see one that plays it out. Some of them pick 3-footers up. Why not?”

But speaking four years ago about the then 75-year-old, he reckoned that Trump “can really strike the ball. He makes good contact. He's got a good swing. He's a pretty good putter. Back in his day, he had to be a 4- or 5-handicap. Today, he's probably a 10, 12.”

In 2023 Trump posted on Truth Social: “I am pleased to report, for those that care, that I just won the Senior Club Championship (must be over 50 years old!) at Bedminster (Trump National Golf Club), shooting a round of 67.

"Now, some people will think that sounds low, but there is no hanky/lanky. Many people watch, plus I am surrounded by Secret Service Agents. Not much you can do even if you wanted to, and I don’t."

The reason some people may think that score sounds low is that it is. It is five under par. In the same month, LIV Golf held an event at this course and only six of the 144 rounds in that were of 67 or lower.

In August 2025, Trump claimed a gross score of 69, adjusted to a net 67, to win the Men's Senior Club Championship

Trump is clearly a good golfer, especially for his age, but could he really be that good?

We’ll give the last word to a post by the great man himself: "For some reason, I am just a good golfer/athlete — I have won many Club Championships, and it is always a great honor!"