Donald Trump said renovations at East Potomac Golf Links will begin on Sept. 1, putting a start date on a Washington, DC golf project that has already been tangled up in court. He described the site as one with water and unparalleled views of D.C.'s Monuments and said it would become one of the Greatest Golf Courses anywhere in the World.
The announcement gives the public course a clear next step after a lawsuit from a nonprofit and two residents in Washington tried to block the plan. Trump also said the existing facility would be kept in full use while the work moves ahead, signaling that the course will not simply be shut down before the renovation begins.
That matters now because the project is moving out of argument and into action. The administration and National Links Trust reached a deal in May allowing the organization to continue operating East Potomac Golf Links, and the renovation date lands as Trump is using Washington landmarks to promote his wider plans in the city.
The East Potomac plan also sits beside a separate fight over the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, where Trump blamed Criminal, Radical Left Vandals for damage after renovations. The sequence tied to that pool has included damage reports, arrests, citations and a lawsuit, but no finding of vandalism has been identified in the material provided. David Hearn, who was arrested by U.S. Park Police and charged with misdemeanor destruction of government property, said, “I didn’t vandalize anything,” and added, “I didn't destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”
What changes on Sept. 1 is still the key unanswered piece. Trump has put a date on the work, but the public description stops at a broad promise of a better golf course, leaving the scope of the renovation to be seen when crews begin.
