Donald Trump no bully to golf writers: Maybe he's right on Golf Digest

People love to rip on Donald Trump. Usually it’s people who’s never meet or had a single dealing with the man, such as our own TravelGolf.com raving lunatic with Elmer Fudd hair Tim McDonald.

Like many golf writers who appear to be sheep braying for Golf Digest, McDonald blasts Trump for charging that Golf Digest publisher Thomas Bair told him that he’d need to advertise with the magazine to get his Trump International - his private West Palm Beach course - on the magazine’s Top 100 list.

Now, I have no inside knowledge on what went down between Trump and Golf Digest - though neither does McDonald or all the other GD defenders - but I’ve experienced how Trump acts when disappointed by a course rating. And it’s anything but bullying or babyish.

Trump had his assistants track me down and call me out of blue when I didn’t include his Trump National LA on TravelGolf.com’s Top 10 California Courses. The big-haired man himself got on the phone and urged me to come out and experience the course again.

He wasn’t pushy about it. He didn’t threaten me. He didn’t even try to change my mind over the phone. Instead he was ultra polite and personable. He sounded like a guy who respected golf writers.

When I got to the course (which I drove to myself, no Trump private jet favors), there wasn’t a package of goodies waiting there (many courses try to curry favor with golf writers by giving them free shirts, towels, ball markers, etc…) Instead I was treated like any other guest - which is the experience every golf writer should want - and sent out on the course. I even bought my own lunch.

I came back with a story saying that Trump National LA still wasn’t a Top 10 California shoo-in. Trump didn’t go ballistic. He didn’t make up a story about me or charge TravelGolf.com with something unseemly. He just accepted it.

Later I ran into him at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe and he gave me another interview without hesitation. There was no childish grudge behavior.

It’s enough to make you wonder if Trump isn’t telling the truth on his Golf Digest dealings. Donald Trump may be a lot of things, but there seems to be no evidence that a liar is one of them. This guy tells it straight and doesn’t give a damn if it offends.

Think about it. It would have been easy for Trump to try and attack TravelGolf.com, an outside-the-staid-golf-mainstream publication that puts its readers first, with a bogus charge. If that’s the way he rolled, he would have done it then. Golf Digest is a much bigger elephant to take on.

No, seems like there’s a good chance there is something to Trump’s Golf Digest story. Of course this comes from a golf writer that’s not angling for a job at GD. Wonder how many of the magazine’s Trump bashing friends are?

McDonald isn’t - he knows he’s too crazy to work anywhere that corporate. But this is about the time McDonald will come back with a “They say you can buy sports writers for a steak dinner. Well, Trump got Baldwin for a phone call.”

Only problem with that logic is I kept Trump’s course off the California Top 10. McDonald included Trump International on his Florida Top 10 courses.

So basically I guess McDonald’s argument is that he’s an idiot and Golf Digest is right. Makes you wonder if he’s not just another loon blinded by robotic Trump hatred? There’s a lot of those guys out there.

Golf needs more original fearless thinkers instead. And Donald Trump is one of them.

Tell us more, Trump.