It’s been just over two months since professional sports essentially shut down in the U.S., but on Sunday, live sports made its slow return to action.
The TaylorMade Driving Relief — a match-play charity event for coronavirus relief at the Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach, Fla. — took place on Sunday. And as Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler and Matthew Wolff were well into the competition, President Donald Trump called into the NBC broadcast for an interview with Mike Tirico.
Now, when it comes to Tirico and golf, the longtime sports broadcaster has a history with Trump — more specifically, Trump’s alleged cheating in golf.
And as Tirico signed off on the interview, it sure seemed like he hinted at that cheating.
@NoLayingUp tirico flames trump on the way out pic.twitter.com/v871dVX9j9
— CrÆ Bandichris (@cyork_01) May 17, 2020
Tirico said after Trump mentioned their past round of golf:
“I got to see firsthand — you’re a good putter, knock it to kick-in distance often.”
The specific incident between Tirico and Trump was detailed in Rick Reilly’s book, Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump. Trump allegedly threw Tirico’s ball into a bunker, via The New Yorker:
And Trump doesn’t only give himself unfair advantages: he’s also been known to hobble his opponents. On another occasion recounted by Reilly, Trump was playing with Mike Tirico, the sportscaster, who hit a long, soaring second shot into a par five, high-fived his caddy, and headed for the green. When he got there, there was no sign of his ball; it had somehow ended up in a sand trap some fifty feet left of the pin. “Lousy break,” Trump said. Tirico was so befuddled that he took a seven. Afterward, Trump’s caddy told Tirico that his approach shot had actually finished up about ten feet from the hole. “Trump threw it into the bunker,” the caddy said. “I watched him do it.”
That sign-off remark makes a lot of sense now.
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