President Donald Trump loves to golf. He loves it so much, according to the Washington Post, that he installed a giant room-size golf simulator so he could play 18 holes of virtual golf without ever leaving the White House.
As the Post reported today:
That system replaced an older, less sophisticated golf simulator that had been installed under President Obama, according to two people with knowledge of the previous system.
Trump’s system cost about $50,000, and was put in during the last few weeks in a room in his personal quarters, a White House official said.
The Post notes Trump paid for the system personally, which is incredible, especially when you consider how much of Trump’s time is spent in unstructured “executive time,” when he is allegedly working but could very well be playing endless rounds of virtual golf in a dark room. A White House official told the Post Trump hasn’t gotten a chance to use the simulator since he put it in, and also that he hasn’t used it during his many “executive” hours.
This comes as a bit of a surprise, seeing as Trump hasn’t been shy about carving out massive amounts of the work week for golf at any other point during his time in the White House so far, but sure.
The simulator, the paper also reported, allows Trump to hit a real ball into a large video screen. It’s likely similar to the ones installed in a lot of Dick’s Sporting Goods stores that let people try out clubs before they buy them, but probably a lot more immersive, as it’s $50K worth of virtual golf action.
The only question that remains for me here is: Does playing virtual golf make Trump a gamer? Sound off in the comments if you have a strong opinion on that.