How do Trump's golf expenses compare to those of previous presidents like Obama?

1. What the advocates claim: Trump’s golf is unusually expensive and frequent

Analyses produced after 2024 converge on a portrayal that Trump played golf more often and at greater direct taxpayer expense than Barack Obama and many modern predecessors. One widely cited estimate tallies roughly $151.5 million for Trump’s first term and an additional $26.1 million into his second, linked to 293 days on his courses and a higher outing frequency—about one golf trip every 5.9 days compared with Obama’s 8.8-day rhythm ^[1]. Other pieces cite similar totals—figures of $144 million and $140 million have circulated—emphasizing heavy costs for Air Force One, Secret Service logistics and other security overheads tied to private resorts, and dailyized costs as high as $600,000–$1.4 million per day depending on the study’s assumptions ^{[2] [3] [4]}. These analyses stress the nature of travel—frequent trips to a president’s own properties—amplifies costs relative to traditional, often less-expensive presidential retreats ^[2].

2. What the defenders or alternate framings note: context and counting matter

Other analysts caution against single-number headlines and emphasize methodological choices: which flights, overtime, Coast Guard or local law enforcement costs, and ancillary logistics are charged to golf-specific activity versus normal presidential travel. Some work contrasts Trump’s numbers with earlier, sometimes-comparable splits in family or personal travel by Obama—one estimate cited $3.6 million for a 2013 golf-inclusive trip to Palm Beach and Chicago, and a broader tally of $70.5 million for Obama family or largely personal travel in a different accounting by a private watchdog ^[5]. Some summaries also place Trump’s totals alongside government audit findings about presidential travel, noting that earlier presidents’ costs were rarely broken out specifically as “golf” and that frequency alone doesn’t equate to unique marginal cost unless additional flights or personnel were required ^{[6] [7]}.

3. Direct comparisons — where numbers align and where they diverge

When comparisons are structured the same way—counting Air Force One, Secret Service, and ancillary security tied to golf trips—Trump emerges as costlier than Obama in both absolute dollars and outing frequency, per multiple independent tallies ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Yet reported totals vary: studies claim anywhere from roughly $102 million to over $151 million for Trump’s terms, while accounts point to Obama-era family travel totals and isolated trip estimates that are substantially lower when measured similarly ^{[6] [5]}. The divergence often reflects how analyses treat recurring stays at private properties, whether they apportion whole flights to leisure days, and whether they include overhead such as general Secret Service readiness that would exist regardless.

4. The methodological holes that change the conclusion

Key uncertainties stem from allocation rules: some reports assign full operational costs of a presidential flight or security deployment to a single leisure day, inflating per-round figures; others prorate multi-purpose trips that mix official business with leisure. Government audits and watchdog groups differ in transparency and scope, and some widely-cited totals derive from private calculations rather than a single standardized federal accounting ^{[4] [3] [7]}. The result is that while broad directional claims (Trump costlier than Obama) are supported, precise dollar-to-dollar comparisons remain fragile unless the same cost elements and timeframes are strictly matched.

5. Political and disclosure implications — why this matters beyond dollars

Analyses calling out high golf-related spending have political and ethical implications, especially when trips involve the president’s private resorts and raise questions about private benefit from official travel. Critics highlight potential conflicts of interest and the optics of taxpayer-funded use of private properties; defenders frame some travel as routine presidential movement and emphasize security imperatives ^{[2] [6]}. Several pieces explicitly signal organizational agendas—watchdog groups and opinion-driven outlets frame the same facts with different emphases—so readers should treat source interests as part of evaluation rather than assume a single neutral ledger ^{[5] [2]}.

6. Bottom line — what can be stated with confidence and what remains unsettled

Multiple post-2024 analyses consistently show Trump’s golf-related taxpayer costs exceed those of Obama when calculated with similar categories (transport, security, overtime) and that Trump’s outing frequency was higher. Exact totals range from roughly $100 million to $151+ million depending on methodology, and comparisons are sensitive to which travel and security costs are attributed to “golf.” The directional finding is robust: higher frequency and substantial additional costs are documented across independent accounts, but the specific dollar figure depends on definitional choices that remain contested in the sources ^{[1] [2] [3] [5]}.