With golf long
regarded as a stern measure of character and a natural setting for deal-making,
U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's
weekend
outing in Florida could be viewed as more than a leisurely bonding exercise
between two world leaders.
U.S. President
Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Abe will form a twosome for their round of
golf on Saturday, presumably at the Trump International Golf Club near his
Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach. Details are still under wraps.
Trump told a
local sports radio station last weekend golf was a better way to get to know
someone than lunch and saw his match-up with Abe as a "fun" meeting
between partners rather than adversaries.
Abe might feel
the occasion carries more weight.
His prime
minister grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, and U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower
played near Washington in 1957, a round newspapers described as a "triumph
of diplomacy" between former World War Two enemies.
Abe teed off
the latest round of golf diplomacy in November, giving Trump an expensive,
gold-colored driver during their meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan, where he
sought assurances about the future strength of the decades-old alliance between
the two nations.
With anxiety
over Trump's tough talk on currency, security and trade with Japan, some in
Tokyo have expressed concern Abe might be too generous in any haggling on the
fairways when pitted against the real estate mogul and author of "The Art
of the Deal".
FORMIDABLE
OPPONENT
In purely a
golfing sense, Abe is likely to find Trump a formidable opponent.
"He is
pretty remarkable for a 70-year-old guy," Jaime Diaz, editor-in-chief of
Golf World and a senior writer for Golf Digest, told Reuters.
"As I
understand it, his handicap is 2.8. That seems a little low but I think he is
very capable of playing to a five or six handicap.
"He is a
legitimate good player. It's not a 'trumped-up' claim that he is somebody who
shoots in the 70s."
Trump says he
has won 18 club trophies and said such a winning pedigree made him the ideal
man to run the country during the election race.
"See how
beautiful my hands are, look at those hands. Those are powerful hands,"
Trump said at a Detroit rally last year during the Republican primaries.
"(They
can) hit a golf ball 285 yards."
Retired boxer
Oscar De La Hoya questioned Trump's trustworthiness on the golf course while
speaking to reporters in Las Vegas in May 2016 during the build-up to the WBC
middleweight title clash between Canelo Alvarez and Amir Khan, according to the
AP. Hollywood actor Samuel L. Jackson did the same in an interview he did with
United Airlines' Rhapsody magazine in January 2016. Reuters could not
independently confirm these accounts.
After the
Jackson interview, Trump issued a tweet that said in part: "I don't cheat
at golf." The White House did not return a request for comment on the
cheating allegations.
Diaz who has
twice played with Trump, at Trump National Golf Club Charlotte in North
Carolina in 2013 and more recently at the Doral resort in Florida, described
the President as someone who would not need to resort to cheating to beat most
players.
"I know
he has won all these club championships at golf courses that he owns and a lot
of people are suspect about that. But he would be a tough guy to beat with a
five handicap," the golf writer said.
"He
addresses the ball with good body language ... confident and flowing and fluid.
He just looks like he is going to hit a good shot."
THREE HUNDRED
CLUB
It is far
harder to find allegations of cheating or boastfulness directed at the more
circumspect Abe, who is a member of the ultra-exclusive Three Hundred Club in
Kanagawa Prefecture, south-west of Tokyo.
The club,
confined to only 300 members, charges some 70-80 million yen
($625,000-$715,000) for membership fees and 50,000 yen for green fees.
The
62-year-old Abe takes the game very seriously and local media have reported
that rounds with his wife can get tense if he is playing poorly.
"When he
is playing golf, he concentrates. So everyone else becomes intense as
well," a company president who plays Abe once or twice a year, told
Reuters on condition of anonymity.
He was unsure
of Abe's handicap but confirmed reports that the Prime Minister usually shoots
between 90 and 100 over 18 holes, which would place him squarely in the field
of average weekend hackers.
A straight
driver with a "stable" game all round, Abe is generally smartly
turned out, sometimes in short pants and knee socks and always with a baseball
cap on his head.
"I was
impressed that Abe holds the flag on the green, while other players are
putting," the source said.
"People
in a high position like him do not have to do that for others. He is very
polite."
The
conservative politician is not so reserved as to shun refreshments at the '19th
hole' back at the clubhouse, however, where he might indulge in a couple of
glasses of beer or red wine after a bath to freshen up, added the source.
For graphic on
the Trump/Abe scorecard, click tmsnrt.rs/2ltvfm7
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