Essential Golf: A passion for the Game

Donald Trump to Play Golf with Hideki Matsuyama

It isn’t every day you get to play golf with one of the world’s top five players. At the same time, it isn’t a run of the mill thing to play a round with the President of the United States either.

But that will all happen next month because Donald Trump, America’s current and 45th president, will enjoy a round of golf with world number four Hideki Matsuyama when he visits Japan as part of a tour of Asia in November. The tour will cover Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines before finishing in Hawaii.

According to reports, the Japanese Foreign Ministry revealed that a call between Trump and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe resulted in a game of golf being arranged between the pair for November 5. Matsuyama will also be one of the playing partners that day too.

Both Abe and Trump are keen golfers, so much so that the Japanese Prime Minister presented his American counterpart with a Honma driver after he won the United States presidency in the elections in 2016.

The pair enjoyed a round together in Florida earlier this year and they will now contest a return game in Japan in November.

Trump, of course, is no stranger to golf. He—or Trump International—owns 17 golf courses around the world including Turnberry, the famous Scottish course and four-time host of the Open Championship. Other golf properties include Trump International Links, a Scottish track near Aberdeen, and Doonbeg in Ireland.

In the United States, the Trump National golf courses include tracks in Los Angeles, California; Jupiter (the renowned Doral course) and Palm Beach, Florida; Ferry Point, Hudson Valley and Westchester, New York; Colts Neck, Bedminster and Philadelphia, New Jersey; Charlotte, North Carolina and one in Washington D.C.

Elsewhere, two more Trump-owned golf courses are located in Dubai.

Matsuyama, a five-time winner on the PGA TOUR—the Memorial Tournament in 2014, the Phoenix Open in 2016 and 2017, the WGC-HSBC Champions in 2016 and the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in 2017.

Matsuyama also scored his best-ever result in a major in 2017, when he finished runner-up to Brooks Koepka in the U.S. Open at Erin Hills. He has now finished in the top 5 in three of the four majors, with a sixth place finish in the Open Championship his best result in the other Grand Slam event.

Earlier this year, 25-year-old Matsuyama became the first Japanese player to rank second in the Official World Golf Rankings. He has since dropped to fourth place behind Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas, but remains among the elite in the game.

Matsuyama was also the first product of the Japan Golf Tour, which he played on before moving to the United States to join the PGA TOUR, to reach number two in the world rankings. He won eight times on the Japan Golf Tour prior to the switch across the Pacific.

See also: Trump Loans More Money to Scottish Golf Resorts

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