{"id":21076,"date":"2026-01-13T22:22:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T22:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=21076"},"modified":"2026-01-13T22:22:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T22:22:24","slug":"how-the-trump-administration-quietly-and-quickly-took-over-3-golf-courses-in-washington-d-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=21076","title":{"rendered":"How the Trump Administration Quietly and Quickly Took Over 3 Golf Courses in Washington, D.C."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>&#8220;The National Park Service (NPS) owns five golf courses across three properties in the nation&#8217;s capital: East Potomac Park Golf Course (home to three courses), Langston Golf Course, and Rock Creek Park Golf Course. If that seems like a weird thing for the federal government to do, you&#8217;re right\u2014but it&#8217;s common in the D.C. area, where the NPS might also own your favorite concert venue or theater, parkways on your commute, your marina, or the park in the traffic circle a block from your office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All that federal control means the president might suddenly take an interest in, and mess with, your favorite hobby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;National Links Trust has done everything it promised, and the Trump administration isn&#8217;t retaking control of D.C.&#8217;s public golf courses to make them nicer and more affordable for taxpayers,&#8221; according to sports business writer Joe Pompliano, who reviewed the lease. &#8220;They are doing it to create an upscale venue that can host a Ryder Cup, replacing the promise of affordable golf with prices most taxpayers cannot afford.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In short, the government said it needed help fixing the golf courses. National Links Trust got a 50-year lease to do so. Government red tape made it hard to do the work quickly. Then the Trump administration had a shiny (possibly far-fetched) idea, blamed National Links Trust for not going fast enough, and cut off the lease. That&#8217;s not exactly going to encourage more nonprofits or private contractors to work with the administration, or possibly with the government in general.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2026\/01\/06\/how-the-trump-administration-quietly-and-quickly-took-over-3-golf-courses-in-washington-d-c\">https:\/\/reason.com\/2026\/01\/06\/how-the-trump-administration-quietly-and-quickly-took-over-3-golf-courses-in-washington-d-c<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The National Park Service (NPS) owns five golf courses across three properties in the nation&#8217;s capital: East Potomac Park Golf Course (home to three courses), Langston Golf Course, and Rock Creek Park Golf Course. If that seems like a weird thing for the federal government to do, you&#8217;re right\u2014but it&#8217;s common in the D.C. area, where the NPS might also own your favorite concert venue or theater, parkways on your commute, your marina, or the park in the traffic circle a block from your office.<\/p>\n<p>All that federal control means the president might suddenly take an interest in, and mess with, your favorite hobby.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;National Links Trust has done everything it promised, and the Trump administration isn&#8217;t retaking control of D.C.&#8217;s public golf courses to make them nicer and more affordable for taxpayers,&#8221; according to sports business writer Joe Pompliano, who reviewed the lease. &#8220;They are doing it to create an upscale venue that can host a Ryder Cup, replacing the promise of affordable golf with prices most taxpayers cannot afford.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In short, the government said it needed help fixing the golf courses. National Links Trust got a 50-year lease to do so. Government red tape made it hard to do the work quickly. Then the Trump administration had a shiny (possibly far-fetched) idea, blamed National Links Trust for not going fast enough, and cut off the lease. That&#8217;s not exactly going to encourage more nonprofits or private contractors to work with the administration, or possibly with the government in general.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/reason.com\/2026\/01\/06\/how-the-trump-administration-quietly-and-quickly-took-over-3-golf-courses-in-washington-d-c\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[902,221,1469,170,1822],"class_list":["post-21076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-dc","tag-donald-trump","tag-government-intervention","tag-trump","tag-washington-d-c"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21076"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21078,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21076\/revisions\/21078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}