Donald Trump struck ties with great footballer Brett Favre on Saturday at his golf club in the suburban village of Bedminster in New Jersey.
White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere shared a photo of the President of the United States alongside Favre, the three-time NFL MVP who played most of his career with the Green Bay Packers and was included in the Professional Soccer Hall of Fame in 2016.
The visit marked Trump’s 10th trip to one of his golf courses in the past 29 days.
Trump played golf with Brett Favre today at Trump National in Bedminster. WH Under Secretary of the Press Judd Deere flashes this photo. pic.twitter.com/jdB7uTAfTL
– Bryan Armen Graham (@BryanAGraham) July 25, 2020
Deere said the president made the trip to the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster to attend a fundraising event at the club on Saturday night hosted by America First Action, a Super Pac that has spent more than $ 540,000 to organize events at the Trump hotel in Washington DC, making It a primary source of campaign revenue for the hotel and family business, according to public data and 1100 Pennsylvania, which tracks the events of the Trump hotel.
Favre, who played 17 seasons with the Packers before finishing with the New York Jets and Minnesota Vikings, retired in 2010 as the NFL’s absolute leader in air yards, touchdown passes and quarterback victories.
His one-year stint with the Jets brought him into the orbit of Woody Johnson, the team’s billionaire owner who was criticized this week amid reports that he was investigated for comment allegations and controversial deals in his role as Trump’s ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Saturday’s round was not the first time that Trump has played golf with a famous athlete. The President of the United States has counted Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, and Dustin Johnson among his clique of associates since taking office. In March, four days before Major League Baseball canceled spring training due to the coronavirus outbreak, Trump played golf with Washington Nationals players Ryan Zimmerman, Trea Turner, Kurt Suzuki, Patrick Corbin, and Daniel Hudson.
Rory McIlroy, the current world number 2 on the PGA Tour who faced a backlash after playing a round of golf with Trump shortly after his inauguration in 2017, admitted that the president was “charismatic” and had an “X factor “but he said he wouldn’t play. with him again if asked.
“I don’t know if he would want to play with me again after what I just said, but I didn’t want [play with him again]”McIlroy said in May.” I felt that I would have made more statements if I had rejected it. It was a round of golf and nothing more. “
McIlroy criticized Trump’s politicization of a pandemic that had claimed more than 85,000 American lives at the time, a figure that has almost doubled since then.
“We are in the midst of something that is quite serious right now and the fact that he is trying to politicize it and turn it into a campaign rally and say that we are administering most of the tests in the world as if it were a contest: there is something that is just terrible, “said McIlroy.
He added: “It is not the way a leader should act. There is a kind of diplomacy that you must have, and I don’t think I am showing it, especially in these times.”
Golf Digest magazine has said Trump has a “low single-digit disadvantage” and may be the best golfer to occupy the White House.
But it has also been described by other players as “the world’s worst golf trick” in Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump, a 2019 book by former Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly, who has played with Trump himself.
