Competitive Trump’s no fool when when he hits the tennis court
IMET Donald Trump quite a few years ago at a charity tennis event at Mar-a-Lago which is his estate in Palm Beach in Florida. That ran for about 10 years. I actually played against him and he was quite funny, he had white old-fashioned shorts and he played with the Grand Slam winner Johan Kriek — he was very good at finding good partners.
It is a pretty competitive event for big-hitting businessmen where all the amateurs put up £16,000 to play with the pros and they raised £1.6million for prostate cancer.
The first thing that struck me was how competitive he was. He did not hit the ball badly but would position himself so he would be right on top of the net, almost guarding his tramline and would make sure he had a good pro who could run all day behind him. The pros take it very seriously and the amateurs often offer them money on the side if they win.
For an extra two or three grand the pros would hit their own grandmother, so I was pretty impressed Donald would not back off, even though he is a decent-sized target and standing a foot from the net. He got pegged a few times but was fine about it.
I found it very amusing that he did not care who the other people were. As an example, they would do a Calcutta auction the night before the event. Trump would do the MC’ing and there were a couple of times where there were these extremely wealthy men who would not put up their hand and Trump would just deride them. He’d go, ‘You’re worth more money than God, put your damn hand up!’
I then started to play golf with him at his club. He plays off about a six and is good and I’m not. I’d hit the ball and he’d say: ‘Gee son, I’m so glad you’re a damned good tennis player because your golf sucks.’ His golf cart was like he had put in an extra-special Ferrari engine. He would be tearing around the course about 100mph.
He had more energy than any human being I’d ever met. A normal round would take four hours. With him it takes two. When you’re on the putting green, you just putt, you don’t measure it. When you play with him you feel like you’ve got to do everything at four times the speed because he looks at you like, ‘Hey, time’s short here!’ Whenever he plays behind you on the course and you see him behind you, you get the hell off and let him play th through because he is r right up your backside. He has an amazing memory and knows the name of every member at his course. I was a member for a year or two and whenever I was sitting at a table he would come round, put his hand on my shoulder and say: ‘The great John Lloyd, winner of three Grand Slam titles.’
The service at his golf courses is amazing. He offered me an unbelievable deal for membership and the next day I drove up to the course. And at the gate they knew me straight away and said: ‘Hey Mr Lloyd, welcome to the club.’
I’ve always found him to be respectful and funny and he tells great stories. I don’t know all the other stuff but he has always been nice to me. Everything is first class. And if he can help build the country like he builds his golf courses, then it’s going to be in good shape.