Two famous golfers have been making headlines in the last couple of days. Call me misguided, but I can’t help seeing their stories as being somehow inter-twined.

The first of them has been out of the spotlight for a while as a result of various troubles and travails, but his mastery on the fairway has re-asserted itself in dramatic fashion. His exceptional play on a 181 yard, par-three hole recently is a case in point. Playing into what he described variously as “a rather strong wind” and elsewhere “a slight wind” – the discrepancy is typical, as you’ll realise when you find out who it is – he hit a five iron which “sailed magnificently” with “five feet of cut” then bounced twice on the green and disappeared. A hole in one.

Our man was so delighted he insisted on issuing a press release which provided a shot-for-shot account of the game, undertaken with a group of players which included four time Masters champion Ernie Els. “I won’t tell you who won because I am a very modest individual, and you will then say I was bragging – and I don’t like people who brag!” the statement continued. If you haven’t guessed by now, the hole-in-oner is Donald Trump. “It is,” he continued, “100% true”. And what does everyone’s favourite perma-tanned, flaxen-haired dolt represent if not truthiness?

The Herald:

Donald Trump swings during a visit to the Menie estate in 2011

The second golfer has also been absent from the world stage for a while. He too has had his troubles and travails, though mostly on account of physical problems rather than from having being booted out of the White House after failing to overthrow an election result through armed insurrection. He is Tiger Woods, of course, a man with 82 PGA Tour wins and 15 Majors to his name. And what a name it is: Tiger, a big beast feared by all! Woods, the things you wallop the ball with but pay someone else to carry!

At the time of writing he is one under par after his opening round at the US Masters, held at the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. If he wins at the age of 46, or is even in contention come today’s final round, it will be an extraordinary feat. But even his being there is an achievement.

Woods hasn’t played golf competitively since November 2020. On top of that he was badly injured in February last year when his SUV turned over at 80 miles an hour on a country road in California. He fractured bones in both his legs and at one point doctors feared they would have to remove one of them. They didn’t, and now leg and owner have returned to the course in what may prove to be the comeback of all comebacks.

Many will cheer. Some others will not. After all, Woods is a divisive figure. Yes, he’s arguably the greatest golfer ever to pull on a pastel-coloured polo shirt and matching slacks, and the first sports person to notch up career earnings of $1 billion. But at the same time he is, by his own admission, a man who has struggled with brand-denting personal problems – his perceived infractions have cost him millions in lost or cancelled sponsorship deals over the years – and whose sense of entitlement has pulled him into some dark places.

In February 2010, following another car crash and a slew of revelations about extra-marital affairs, he addressed the subject. “I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to,” he said in a statement. “I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled. Thanks to money and fame, I didn’t have to go far to find them. I was wrong. I was foolish.”

That wasn’t the only time he made headlines for the wrong reasons. In 2017, there was more car trouble, this time in Florida. Woods was found asleep at the wheel, his SUV stationary in a traffic lane with the engine running. He was arrested for driving under the influence and eventually copped to reckless driving,. He was fined – a paltry amount – and made to do community service.

So in what ways does that other golfer, equally famous and equally divisive, emulate Woods? Well, that line about thinking you can get away with anything you want to because you have money and fame could have been written for Donald Trump. And the bit about being wrong and foolish did come out of Trump’s mouth – sort of, anyway – after the so-called Access Hollywood tapes were leaked two days before the 2016 US election. A recap of the inglorious episode, for those who have forgotten: “I just start kissing them,” he was heard telling TV host Bill Bush in a recording from 2005, them being any unfortunate woman who strays across his path. “It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it … Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Following the revelations, Trump apologized. So far, so contrite. But Trump being Trump, he later questioned the veracity of the recording he had apologized for and added the comment that Bill Clinton had said worse to him on – wait for it – the golf course.

One way Trump would love to emulate Tiger Woods is in on a golf course, preferably by winning the Masters. No, don’t scoff. He surely thinks himself capable of it, so gargantuan is his ego. Just imagine how that press release would read. Back in the real world, his lack of talent is an impediment, but so is a little thing called the rule book. We can take Trump’s claim of a recent hole in one at face value – there were witnesses after all, and it isn’t an April Fool’s Day gag – but he has a reputation among golfers for more than economical with the truth where matters of fairway, rough and green are concerned.

Diligent sleuthing by American sports journalist Rick Reilly – added to his experience of actually having played with Donald Trump – resulted in 2019 book Commander In Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump. In it, Reilly reveals that Trump cheats at the game and lies about his achievements. He details whopper after whopper, such as Trump’s claim to have won 18 club championships, and reveals the nickname caddies at one club gave him: Pele, for his habit of kicking his ball from the rough onto the fairway. “He cheats at the highest level,” Reilly writes. “He cheats when people are watching and he cheats when they aren’t. He cheats whether you like it or not. He cheats because that’s how he plays golf.”

He concludes: “You can think Trump has made America great again. You can think Trump has made America hate again. But there’s one thing I know: He’s made golf terrible again.”

One account of Trump’s behaviour relates to a game played shortly after he became president. Trump took to the course with three others, among them then-world number one Dustin Johnson, and veteran PGA Tour player Brad Faxon. Trump hit a ball into the lake, put down another ball and hit that one into the lake but then didn’t declare either when he scored the hole.

And the other man making up the four that day? Tiger Woods.