Donald Trump is staying at Camp David: A look at its one-hole golf course

The most exclusive golf club in the United States has just one hole. 

And has had just 12 members. 

Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower. 

The golfers-in-chief.

The country’s presidential retreat, Camp David in Maryland, has one hole, with four tees, and a driving range. This weekend during his visit, Trump is likely a short wedge from the hole, as it sits just outside the Aspen Lodge, where presidents have typically stayed.

His clubs, it appears, didn’t make the trip. 

“So nice to see this great honor. Thank you (but haven’t played golf in a long time)!” he wrote Sunday morning in a quote tweet, which was referring to Golf World naming Trump Turnberry its No. 1 golf course in Great Britain and Ireland.

Trump wouldn’t need much more than a wedge to play the Camp David hole, as the tees are 140, 120, 100 and 80 yards, according to the About Camp David blog, which is linked to by the White House’s website. 

The hole’s greens might take some time to read.

Eisenhower, according to the Camp David blog, wanted to play at the retreat and asked well-known golf architect Robert Trent Jones to design a hole modeled after the greens at his favorite courses: 

Augusta National, home of the Masters, and Burning Tree in Maryland, which has counted several presidents, Supreme Court justices and congressmen among its members. 

Eisenhower also built a driving range built near Camp David’s helicopter landing zone, according to the Camp David blog. In a photo, it appears to allow for 250-yard-plus shots. 

During the 1990s, the range may have needed a bit more netting. 

Clinton kept hitting an above-ground fueling system near the helicopter landing zone, according to the blog. 

Eventually, the fueling system was buried. 

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Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Editor

Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.

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