Raised alarms

Trump’s golf habit has raised alarms about security for years

The open expanses of golf courses pose special security concerns for the Secret Service.

By Erica Orden, Jonathan Lemire and Betsy Woodruff Swan

The apparent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at his South Florida golf course on Sunday ignited longstanding concerns among security experts that Trump’s regular golf habit might make him vulnerable to assailants.

Nearly every president in recent history has played golf, but the frequency and predictability of Trump’s outings have raised worries for years. Journalists and other bystanders have enjoyed unobstructed views of the former president from locations outside of the perimeter of his private country clubs — and unsecured by the Secret Service.

Those concerns were borne out Sunday at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, where authorities said a Secret Service agent spotted a gunman with a rifle sticking through the fence and fired at the man before he fled the scene. Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was charged on Monday with federal gun crimes in connection to the incident.

Trump was playing golf 300 to 500 yards away and was not harmed. But the former president’s favorite pastime presents a serious challenge for the people protecting him, former Secret Service agents and other security experts said.

“Outdoor events of that size and duration, three-to-five hours, are incredibly difficult and stressful,” said Paul Eckloff, a former Secret Service agent who was assistant detail leader for Trump during his presidency. “You can’t surround a person who’s golfing with steel or glass.”

And though golf is practically a mainstay of the modern American presidency, Trump’s particular fondness for the sport makes his appearance on the links more predictable, and thus riskier.

“The problem is, over the last eight years specifically with Trump is that he golfs a lot. He golfs all the time, so it doesn’t take a neurosurgeon to figure out that if he’s down at Mar-a-Lago, and it’s nice weather, he’s probably going to a golf course,” said Mike Olson, a 21-year veteran of the Secret Service who retired as a senior special agent and who served on then-Vice President Dick Cheney’s detail for four years.

“A golf course is kind of scary. It’s so open,” said Jillian Snider, a retired New York Police Department officer who is now the policy director of think tank R Street Institute.

But golf courses present both advantages and disadvantages for agents, Snider said. On one hand, there are few buildings or other structures on which a would-be shooter could post up, she said. On the other, an expert shooter might have relatively unobstructed access to his or her target.

Securing Trump’s country clubs and other properties has long been a worry for his Secret Service agents and aides.

Both while president and especially now that he is out of office, Trump has long been perceived at his most vulnerable at his golf courses and other clubs where members and, at times, the general public, could wander. Agents in his detail would often breathe a sigh of relief when Trump would opt to spend a weekend at the White House rather than venture to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, or Bedminster, New Jersey, former officials said.

There, agents and aides would have far less control over who would get near Trump. Some of those concerns were political: Senior West Wing aides would brace themselves after Trump spent a weekend mingling at his clubs because he would often come back touting a new far-fetched idea passed along by a rich friend, former aides recall. But other worries were about his security — and while measures were put in place, those clubs were far more vulnerable than a government facility.

Moreover, the threats were not limited to those within the property. Many of Trump’s golf courses — including the one in West Palm Beach, where the possible assassination attempt occurred — abut public lands and busy roads, and the Secret Service had little control beyond their secured perimeter.

A number of times during his presidency, a news photographer with a long-range lens was able to set up shop beyond the course boundaries — including at Bedminster and Trump’s private club in Sterling, Virginia, not far from Washington — and take photos of the president golfing. The media was not normally permitted to accompany the president as he played, so the photos — which, at times, yielded some embarrassing images of his poor shots — were in high demand.

But they also, according to officials, reminded those in the White House of a security threat: If a photographer was able to stake out a position and get a shot, couldn’t a would-be assassin do the same? And when Trump’s security detail thinned out after he left office, those courses became even less secure — even as the former president mounted another campaign.

Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg on Monday described the golf course as a “much harder property to lock down than Mar-a-Lago,” another private club owned by the former president that also doubles as his primary residence.

Mar-a-Lago, which does not contain a golf course, is relatively isolated because it’s across an intercoastal bridge and bordered on one side by water, Aronberg said in an appearance on MSNBC. “You can block and shut down the roads. You can’t really do that as easily around the golf course, which is a major area of West Palm Beach.”

But while Trump’s frequent golf outings pose threats to his security, the limited locations where he plays the vast majority of his rounds — a small number of private country clubs that he also owns — makes it easier for officers to secure the grounds than if he played various courses.

“They know what belongs and doesn’t. Clearly the muzzle of a SKS-style rifle poking through the treeline doesn’t belong,” said Eckloff, referring to how the Secret Service agents protecting Trump spotted his alleged would-be assassin.

Eckloff said agents typically use dogs, drones and counter-assault and counter-sniper teams to protect golfers. Canines sniff the terrain for explosives. Officers use magnetometers to check other golfers on the course, and keep them out of the immediate vicinity of their protectee and his fellow golfers.

Routh, he noted, may have been hiding in the bushes by the course for 12 hours before an agent spotted him.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) told reporters at the Capitol on Monday that he’s played the West Palm Beach course “many times,” both with and without Trump.

Trump “knows it’s a risk, but they could put people outside the perimeter walking,” Tuberville said. “The guy was there [for] 12 hours. You know, there’s certain things you can do, but it’s still a risk for him to play golf. He knows that.”

If Trump declines to curb his golf outings, “what they can be doing is making them not as predictable,” said Charles Marino, a former Secret Service official who provided support to visiting protective details as Acting Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco field office.

Still, Gordon Heddell, a 28-year veteran of the Secret Service who retired as an assistant director, said the Secret Service has been confronting this particular challenge for decades.

“The Secret Service has protected many protectees on golf courses, mostly presidents. They know how to do it, and they know how to do it in a way that a president — or former president — should be able to play golf and be safe and not even have to be concerned about it,” he said. “Every place that a protectee goes, there is a potential danger.”