WASHINGTON — Unless a federal judge intervenes, President Donald Trump has said the administration will break ground on Sept. 1 for what the Department of the Interior is calling a new “world-class” golf course only a mile from the White House South Lawn.
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It would feature beautiful sight lines, ranging from the Potomac River to the Washington Monument, and is already landscaped with historic cherry trees, an iconic gift from the government of Japan.
The only problem? It would replace a century-old municipal golf course accessible to beginners and Sunday duffers alike, on land belonging to the National Park Service, frequented by bicyclists, picnickers, anglers and others who cherish Washington’s historic green spaces.
Golfers practicing chip shots on a sunny Thursday afternoon were already mourning the loss of the inexpensive and accessible public links.
Cesar Romero told NBC News the municipal course was “for people who’ve been doing it for more than a year, people who do it for more than 10 years. The courses are dynamic, they’re diverse. … Right now we’re playing nine holes for about $28, and that, for a golf course, if you look around, is really a great price.”
Bicyclist Joanne Gribler stopped to tell NBC News: “I moved here 10 years ago, and I come down here easily two to five times a week. Either riding my bike, running, having a picnic. This is really a big part of my life, a big part of why I choose to continue living in D.C.”
“There are world championship golf courses in the area. We don’t need another one right here in D.C.,” she added.
Elizabeth Kiker, executive director of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, questioned the lack of information about the White House’s plans for the course. “We love the space and we love the land as it is. And if there is a change and you’re going to make it a public space better somehow for us all, why can’t we see it?” Kiker said.
The White House has not disclosed its plans for the proposed course nor submitted them to the National Capital Planning Commission or the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, federal agencies that are supposed to sign off on such projects. Neither has meetings scheduled in August before Trump said construction would start on Sept. 1.
When Trump inspected the site on a recent Sunday, he was carrying what appeared to be a printout of a design for the new course. And he was accompanied by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Tom Fazio, the celebrated designer of several of Trump’s own courses, including one at the president’s Bedminster, New Jersey, summer retreat.
Fazio told Golf.com that he had initially told the president he was reluctant to take on the assignment because of the headaches involved in getting approvals for a municipal course. But he changed his mind when he saw the unique location, a human-made peninsula with breathtaking views of Washington’s famed monuments.
In a recent court filing, the administration said it “received copies” of “renderings from Fazio Design, but the renderings and their associated intellectual property rights are in the possession of and maintained by Fazio Design.”
Opponents, led by the D.C. Preservation League, are suing the Department of the Interior to try to stop the project. At a recent hearing, government lawyers insisted the agencies are carrying out the required deliberations before moving ahead with construction.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes questioned how that was possible, saying: “What I’m asking is, how do I know that there’s not been a final agency action, given that I’ve got the president of the United States with the secretary of the interior on the golf course saying, ‘We’re changing this entire thing. We have an architect who’s going to help us change the entire thing. It will be done, it will begin by Sept. 1.’ How is that not basically, at the end of the day … we have a final agency action?”
The Justice Department’s lawyer, Michael Robertson, told Reyes he was not aware of any other dates for the project, other than Trump saying it would start Sept. 1. “There’s no schedule in place,” Robertson said.
Questioning whether the government could be trusted, the judge said, “I don’t want another demolished East Wing; I don’t want another demolished Reflecting Pool,” referring to two controversial administration construction projects. “Where will I have comfort that we’re not sending in bulldozers in the dark of night to chop down cherry trees?” Reyes said.
She refused the government’s request to dismiss the case, but at the same time rejected the opponents’ request for an injunction to stop the project, saying she was not sure she had the authority to tell the executive branch what to do.
Instead, Reyes told the two sides to confer and come back with answers as to whether the interior secretary had given any order to start construction. The government has now said that no order has been given and no decisions have been made.
But part of the golf course has already been altered: A large pile of rubble appeared several months ago on the ninth and fourth holes. It turned out to be debris from the excavation of the East Wing dumped on the links — and it has tested positive for toxic metals, the National Park Service said. It’s now grassed over, but the mound is clearly not part of the course’s original landscaping.
