Trump shares plan to close, overhaul East Potomac golf course amid court fight over land

President Donald Trump said Sunday his administration has developed a plan to transform East Potomac Golf Links into a championship-level golf course, saying the historic public facility will close Nov. 15 and reopen approximately 15 months later.

In a social media post, Trump said the Interior Department and golf architect Tom Fazio had “developed a plan” for the property, which he said would be capable of hosting events such as the U.S. Open and the Ryder Cup.

The rendering Trump released alongside the announcement depicts a dramatically remade Hains Point, with a single 18-hole championship course stretching nearly from shoreline to shoreline. It bears little resemblance to the existing course — or to the more modest historic-restoration plan that government attorneys have cited in court.

The design also appears to eliminate Ohio Drive, the roadway that loops around Hains Point, along with a century-old grove of cherry trees and the historic miniature golf course. If implemented as depicted, the plan would reshape space used daily not only by golfers, but also by thousands of cyclists, runners, walkers, anglers, birdwatchers, and other visitors.

The announcement comes at a consequential moment in a bitter federal court fight over the property — one day before a senior Interior official is scheduled to testify about work already undertaken at the course. Government attorneys have repeatedly emphasized in court that Trump’s broader redevelopment remained conceptual and that there was no final plan being implemented, while maintaining that the recent removal of hundreds of trees was a separate effort stemming from a years-old historic-landscape report.

Trump’s post appeared to move well beyond that characterization. It was not clear what the project would cost or how it would be funded. An Interior Department spokesperson declined to comment Sunday, referring a reporter to Trump’s social media post, and the White House did not immediately respond to further questions.

Katie Zacharia, who was dismissed Friday as White House press secretary, posted altered images of President Donald Trump’s Oval Office desk on Friday and Saturday. Local advocacy groups said that Zacharia appeared to be concealing a map of East Potomac Park. The White House declined to respond to questions about why the images were altered and what they were concealing.

The map posted by Trump on Sunday resembles the blurred image on his desk in the photos.

The administration’s plans for East Potomac have been evolving publicly for months. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum released a conceptual Fazio design in May, and Trump toured the course with Burgum and Fazio in June, carrying detailed plans of the property. Afterward, Trump said that work would begin Sept. 1, though that deadline passed without construction beginning.

The question of how developed Trump’s plans are — and whether work already performed at East Potomac is connected to them — has become central to litigation before U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes.

National Park Service crews removed more than 400 trees from the course last weekend. Government officials have maintained that the work was unrelated to Trump’s proposed redesign and instead implemented recommendations contained in a 2019 Cultural Landscape Report intended to restore East Potomac’s historic links-style character.

Reyes rejected that explanation, at least preliminarily, concluding last week that government officials “raced to undertake” the tree-removal plan because Trump “demands haste on his redesign,” rather than because of “some newfound zeal” to implement a portion of the years-old landscape report. She issued a temporary restraining order, barring any additional tree cutting through Oct. 26.

The dispute has become increasingly acrimonious. Reyes sharply rebuked government attorneys at an emergency hearing last week, saying their handling of the tree removal had undermined the court’s trust. On Friday, the Justice Department asked Reyes to recuse herself, accusing her of “animus” and “open hostility” toward the administration.

Reyes has ordered Gregory Wischer, Burgum’s deputy chief of staff for policy, and Jessica Bowron, acting director of the National Park Service, to testify Monday about the origins and execution of the tree-removal plan.

“East Potomac Park is a national park, golf course, recreational facility that is meant for everyone to enjoy,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which represents the plaintiffs challenging the administration’s actions.

“Our litigation is intended to protect this community jewel for the people and communities it serves, and we will continue to work with our plaintiffs to defend it from unlawful and harmful intrusion,” Perryman said.

Trump called the existing course “old, broken, dilapidated, and of no further use or effect,” describing it as “completely overgrown, dysfunctional, and unsafe.” East Potomac, however, is the busiest public golf facility in the Washington region, hosting 124,500 rounds in 2025.

Critics of Trump’s plan have expressed concern that replacing the municipal facility with a championship-level course could result in higher greens fees, reduce available tee times, and price out some of its regular players. Trump said Sunday that the new course would remain “open to the Public” but did not say what it would cost to play or whether it would remain affordable to the golfers who use East Potomac today.

Golf has been played for 124 years on the narrow Hains Point peninsula, sandwiched between the Potomac River and the Washington Channel and offering sweeping views of the Washington Monument. The facility currently includes the 18-hole Blue Course, nine-hole White Course, and nine-hole par-3 Red Course, along with a two-tiered driving range, practice areas, and a clubhouse.

Trump’s rendering replaces those courses with a single 18-hole championship layout, a large driving range and practice area, and a new clubhouse. The 12th green sits at the southern tip of Hains Point, and two large water features are carved into the peninsula’s interior, where none exists today.

The design also bears little resemblance to the 2019 Cultural Landscape Report that government attorneys have repeatedly cited in court to explain the work now underway at East Potomac. That plan envisioned restoring the existing public golf facility and its historic links-style landscape.

Other long-standing features appear to disappear. The rendering does not show East Potomac’s miniature golf course, which recently underwent a roughly $1 million restoration. The nearly century-old attraction is considered the nation’s oldest continuously operating miniature golf course.

Nor does the rendering appear to preserve the golf course’s historic grove of Japanese cherry trees. East Potomac Park has been home to Japanese flowering cherries since shortly after Japan’s celebrated gift of more than 3,000 trees to Washington in 1912.

Extending the course toward the shoreline also puts new importance on Hains Point’s deteriorating sea wall. The Park Service has already taken preliminary steps toward a major rehabilitation of the wall, a complicated project expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Trump appeared to allude to that problem Sunday, describing the sea wall as “collapsing and hazardous.”

Trump said the new course would have a “tremendously positive Economic Development impact” on Washington. He said the U.S. Golf Association, the Professional Golfers’ Association of America, and the PGA Tour had already been notified that they would soon have “one of the Best and Most Spectacular Golf Courses anywhere in the World” available for major events.

It is also unclear who would operate the new facility. The National Park Service terminated its long-term lease with National Links Trust, the nonprofit that had been overseeing East Potomac and the District’s other federally owned public golf courses. The National Links Trust has continued operating East Potomac under an interim arrangement.