Trump’s golf outings have long concerned Secret Service
Sunday’s episode in West Palm Beach made gravely apparent the security challenges at the former president’s private golf courses.


Former president Donald Trump stands beside a golf cart while speaking to his son Eric Trump and colleagues at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., in 2022. (Tom Brenner for The Washington Post)
By Carol D. Leonnig, Josh Dawsey and Isaac Stanley-Becker
September 16, 2024 at 4:31 p.m. EDT

Soon after Donald Trump became president, authorities tried to warn him about the risks posed by golfing at his own courses because of their proximity to public roads. Secret Service agents came armed with unusual evidence: not suspect profiles or spent bullet casings, but simple photographs taken by news crews of him golfing at his private club in Sterling, Va.

They reasoned that if photographers with long-range lenses could get the president in their sights while he golfed, so too could potential gunmen, according to former U.S. officials involved in the discussions who, like most others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

But Trump insisted that his clubs were safe and that he wanted to keep golfing, the former officials said. These preferences posed problems for his protection that former Trump aides, Secret Service officials and security experts said have only intensified in the years since he left the White House, as his security detail shrank and agents no longer maintained as extensive a perimeter guarding his movements. A Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

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The incident in West Palm Beach was in many ways a more predictable debacle. Indeed, Trump aides and Secret Service agents have long worried about his possible exposure while golfing. The issue, they say, is twofold. He selects locations to golf — his own clubs — that are particularly difficult to secure. And then he follows a highly predictable routine on any given weekend. ... “People are saying, ‘How did [Routh] know he’d be there?’” said a former senior U.S. official. “Well, if you were looking for Trump on a Sunday afternoon, I can tell you where he’d be. Whatever golf course of his that was closest to where he was.” ... Bill Gage, a former agent, said the gunman probably didn’t need to do “very sophisticated surveillance.” ... “He just had to sit and wait for Trump to arrive,” he said. “You don’t have to do a lot of guessing to know where he is going to be and that gives a bad guy time to prepare,” he said.

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By Carol D. Leonnig
Carol Leonnig is an investigative reporter, four-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author of three best-selling books who has worked at The Washington Post since 2000. follow on X @CarolLeonnig

By Josh Dawsey
Josh Dawsey is a political enterprise and investigations reporter for The Washington Post. He joined the paper in 2017 and previously covered the White House. Before that, he covered the White House for Politico, and New York City Hall and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for the Wall Street Journal.follow on X @jdawsey1

By Isaac Stanley-Becker
Isaac Stanley-Becker is an investigative reporter on the national staff.follow on X isaacstanbecker