Pentagon Keeps Pouring Cash Into Golf Courses — Even As Trump Slashes Government Spending

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says he has a singular mission. Your job [as secretary] is to make sure that it's lethality, lethality, lethality. Everything else is gone. Everything else that distracts from that shouldn't be happening," he said during his confirmation process.Since taking the helm at the Pentagon, Hegseth has doubled down.We do warfighting here at the Department of Defense," he said at a Pentagon town hall, demanding a laser focus on readiness, lethality, and warfighting."

Not everyone at the Defense Department seems to have gotten the message. Right now, the U.S. military is looking to pour money into the renovation of 35 golf course sand traps atthe Woodlawn Golf Course at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.Contracting documents show that Air Force Special Operations Command also wants to purchase sterile mushroom compostfor the golf course greens at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico. Itis also looking into hydroseeding at that same course.The Army, for its part, plans to issue a service contract that will cover maintenance in the golf course clubhouse at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York.

What golf has to do with lethality is a question that the Defense Department failed to answer.Nor would the Pentagon weigh in on the hundreds of millions of dollars wrapped up in, or swallowed up by, military golf courses over decades.The Pentagon did not provide a full tally of its current inventory of golf courses, which The Intercept put at around 145. What is clear is that critics have been raising alarms about the military's golf obsession for at least 60 years, and, despite claims of a new dawn at the Pentagon, putting-green pork is still par for the course.

The military shouldn't be in the golf resort business."

The military shouldn't be in the golf resort business," said Gabe Murphy, a policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget watchdog advocating for an end to wasteful spending.

The courses instead tend to serve a clientele of military retirees and dependents. Some are open to public membership. Service members, he said, are seldom primary beneficiaries. They don't have the spare time to go golfing for hours during the week," Murphy said.

Even at a time of rampant cost-cutting across the federal government - including calls from Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency to cut as many as 80,000 jobs from the Department of Veterans Affairs - the U.S military's golf habit is not on chopping block.

This is reflective of a broader disconnect between the Trump administration's rhetoric and its actions, particularly when it comes to Pentagon spending," Murphy said. Just like you don't pour money into sand traps if your goal is defense, you don't give Congress the go-ahead to boost Pentagon spending by $100 billion if your goal is to cut wasteful spending at the Pentagon."

Critics have called out the Pentagon on its golf courses for at least six decades. In 1965, the General Accounting Office (now the Government Accountability Office) cited the Pentagon for spending almost $2 million on land to build an 18-hole golf course at Fort Gordon (now Fort Eisenhower), Georgia, when there was already a nine-hole course at the base. The agency said the property should be sold off.

Sen. William Proxmire, D-Wis., said in 1975 that the $14 million a year spent on the Defense Department's 300 courses, including 19 in foreign countries, was a waste of the taxpayers money." He complained that the funds came directly out of the defense budget." It took until the late 1980s for Congress to finally curb the use of such appropriated funds for military golf courses.

In the decades since, the Pentagon's golf courses - run by the military'sMorale, Welfare, and Recreationas well asMarine Corps Community Servicesprograms - have shrunk in number. The Intercept counted about 145 golf courses, although this is something of an understatement.The Army owns 54 separate golf courses, and while some are just nine holes, many others have the standard 18 holes and still others boast 27 or even 36 holes.The Intercept also counted 51 courses for the Air Force, 29 for the Navy, and 10 for the Marine Corps.

Military courses are classified as revenue-generating programsthat should provide for a majority" of their operating expenses or be supported by other sources of revenue, such as military bowling alleys and eateries, as well as outside donations. Golf course funding is not supposed to come from congressional appropriations, and Pentagon boosters have long wielded this as a cudgel in defense of the military's golf obsession. But critics question why such funds are used for putting greens instead of troops.

If the Pentagon and the armed services want to raise private money to supplement support activities for members of the military," said William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, it would be better spent bolstering services for personnel suffering from PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, and other negative consequences of serving in war zones - services that are underfunded currently."

As with many Pentagon policies, regulations governing military golf courses aren't as simple as they seem. For one, there are loopholes that allow golf courses in foreign countries or isolated installations within the United States" to receive appropriated funds. This is no small matter since Defense Department golf courses dot the world.

The Air Force, alone, boasts overseas golf courses from the Alpine Golf Course at Aviano Air Basein Italy, and Hodja Lakes Golf Course at Incirlik Air Base in Turkiye, to Tama Hills Golf Resort at Yokota Air Base in Japan, and West Winds Golf Course at Kunsan Air Base in South Korea.All told, there are at least two dozen DoD courses in foreign countries, not to mention two in theU.S. island territory of Guam. And even when host nations defray the cost of upkeep, golf-related spending still raises questions about Pentagon priorities. Senate investigators found, for instance, that while Japan paid $2.9 million for golf course netting at the Army's Camp Zama in the 2010s, the money could have been better spent on constructing a much-needed fire station on a U.S. base.

Whether military golf courses actually generate profit and conduct repairs and improvements exclusively with non-appropriated funds has also been as much aspiration as a hard and fast rule. When the General Accounting Office examined Defense Department golf courses in the 1990s, investigators found courses losing money or using taxpayer funding at 40 percent of the bases analyzed. Of 10 bases inspected, two had courses that lost $43,645 and $225,546, respectively, in a single year.Another two bases used congressionally appropriated funds for their golf courses, including maintenance of a golf clubhouse and repairs to golf course structures.

Since then, stories have regularly bubbled up about financially troubled military courses that turn out to be more boondoggle than boon. In 2013, the Pelican Point Golf Course at Florida's Tyndall Air Force Base shut down after running anaverage annual deficitof$270,000 for the better part of a decade. It was the same story at Marshallia Ranch Golf Course at Vandenberg Air Force (now Space Force) Base in California. The golf course has been losing money for nearly 10 consecutive years," Col. J. Christopher Moss said in 2016.Silver Spruce Golf Course on Peterson Space Force Base closed in 2022 after hemorrhaging" $1.2 million over a decade. And last year, Mesquite Grove Golf Course located on Dyess Air Force Base in Texas closed, having lost $450,000 in 2023 and $2.5 million, in total, over 14 years.

In 2017, scandal swirled around a nine-hole golf course, tucked away on the grounds of the U.S. Armed Forces Retirement Home in D.C.,which had been blowing taxpayer dollars on course upkeep for a quarter-century. An investigation by Todd Weiler, then the assistant secretary of defense with oversight over the AFRH,found the agency was plagued by a lack of financial oversight and business acumen."

Weiler discovered that the golf course was drawing on its trust fund, which included congressionally appropriated money as well as 50-cent deductions from paychecks of military enlistees, to pay for the course's maintenance. Due to a bureaucratic quirk - while its CEO reports to the defense secretary, the agency is technically embedded in the executive branch - the course was skirting the department regulations that are supposed to bar taxes from paying for golf. I knew they were violating Defense Department policy, but as they are going to point out, they don't have to abide by it," Weiler explained at the time. But I mean, do you need a specific law to tell you not to spend taxpayer money on a golf course?"(A 2023 GAO report found the AFRH was still financially troubled and faced a plummeting trust fund.)

In May 2018, the Air Force Academyin Colorado celebrated the opening of a new clubhouse at the Eisenhower Golf Course. Carlos Cruz-Gonzalez, the Academy's deputy director for installations, boasted that clubhouse construction was completely covered by funds generated by Air ForceMorale, Welfare, and Recreationprograms. It wasn't paid for with tax dollars," he said at the time. It was built by funds from the Air Force Non-Appropriated Funds programs, generated by services such as outdoor rec, the clubs and bowling alleys."

Taxpayers have historically had to cover some of the costs associated with golf course renovations like these."

The Intercept discovered a contract announcement that appears to contradict Cruz-Gonzalez's boasts, noting that costs were paid with a mix of non-appropriated funds and appropriated operation and maintenance funds. The 16,500-square foot clubhouse, which serves two 18-hole golf courses, has two elevators, high end commercial kitchen equipment," locker rooms for golfers, a pro shop, and large capacity community rooms, including a banquet facility with breathtaking views of the magnificent Rocky Mountains"; Tavern 34 Lounge, a bar serving specialty drinks"; and The Grill, a restaurant that the Air Force says serves up excellent breakfast and lunch fare."All told, the facility cost more than $7 million in non-appropriated money and almost $300,000 in so-called O&M funding.

This contract announcement confirms that taxpayers have historically had to cover some of the costs associated with golf course renovations like these. The fact that these funds are coming out of the Pentagon's Operation and Maintenance accounts is also troubling," said Taxpayers for Common Sense's Murphy. Operations and Maintenance funding is the backbone of U.S. military operations, yet each year, Congress routinely siphons money from O&M to pay for parochial increases to the Pentagon budget. It seems the Pentagon is also happy to raid O&M, at least when there's a golf course club house on the line."

The Air Force Academy acknowledged a request from comment from The Intercept but did not provide one prior to publication.

The Trump administration announced this week that hundreds of federal properties were available for sale, as part of an effort to shrink the federal real estate portfolio and the size of government. The General Services Administration, the government's real estate arm, released a list of 443 structures and properties deemed not core to government operations." A GSA spokesperson said such assets cost over $430 million annually to operate and maintain. The GSA's list of properties was, however, withdrawn a day later.

Currently, no military golf courses are up for sale on the GSA's website.The Intercept sent questions to the GSA by email and was instructed to then call for assistance." The GSA's phone systems were, however, out of order.

The Department of Government Efficiency - which boasts of achieving savings through a combination of efforts including asset sales" - did not reply to questions about the possible sale of DoD golf courses.

Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin who retired from Congress in 2024 and is one of the most outspoken critics of the Pentagon's mammoth property portfolio, has called for a sale of the military's golf courses. The Defense Department owns a property book in the hundreds of billions of dollars - and a lot of that is things like golf courses that the Pentagon does not need to own," he said last year. We can recycle those assets and take the savings and invest it in quality training and living conditions for our troops."

You don't need to be a military strategist to understand that Pentagon-operated golf courses are not essential to national security."

The Pentagon did not provide an estimate of the total worth of its golf courses, but The Intercept found, using recent Pentagon property data, that the costs to replace just the facilities (buildings and other structures) on five golf courses - two in Germany and one each in Japan, Korea, and Massachusetts - total more than $200 million. Add in the structures on another 140 military golf courses and factor in the cost of the land, and the value must be astronomical.

You don't need to be a military strategist to understand that Pentagon-operated golf courses are not essential to national security. The Pentagon should be looking at all of its infrastructure and proposing reductions to address excess capacity, which it has said rests at about 19 percent," Murphy told The Intercept by email. A new Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process could save taxpayers billions of dollars per year by shedding excess infrastructure, and closing the Pentagon's golf courses should be part of that process."

President Donald Trump walks to Marine One after golfing at Trump National Golf Club on Nov. 27, 2020, in Sterling, Va. Photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Profligate spending on golf is de rigueur under President Donald Trump, who reportedly played at least 289 rounds of golf, at a cost to taxpayers of at least $150 million for travel and security, during his first term. In 2019, Trump also faced corruption allegations following reports thatU.S. military personnel were frequently staying at a Trump golf resort in Scotland. He countered that he was not enriching himself, but that he was instead losing money as a result.

Trump had, by the middle of last month, already spent around $11 million in taxpayer dollars on golf this year. Each trip to his Florida country club Mar-a-Lago costs, on average, $3.4 million, including travel on Air Force One, limousines for Trump's motorcade, and the stationing of armed boats nearby, according to a 2019 GAO report. The DoD incurred most of these costs. Ironically, Trump could save taxpayers money by playing at the many military golf courses closer to the White House, such as the two 18-hole championship golf courses at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, the Marine Corps' Medal of Honor Golf Course in Virginia, the two championship 18-hole golf courses at the Army's Fort Belvoir Golf Club also in Virginia, or at the Armed Forces Retirement Home course in Washington, D.C.

Related After Afghanistan Disaster, the Pentagon Is on Track to Get Even More Money

While critics have called out the Pentagon's frivolous focus on golf for at least 60 years, the DoD has consistently played through. During that time, the U.S. military has been mired in losses and stalemates from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, to Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. In each conflict, the U.S. military killed far more people than it has lost on the battlefield, but in none was it able to achieve victory. Despite this, Hegseth remains obsessed with the idea of lethality at all costs. His department, however, continues to divide its attention between the battlefield and the fairway.

Secretary Hegseth'sfocus on lethality, lethality, lethality' is a very narrow viewof who our military personnel are and what they should be focused on. Ideally, our military is a defensiveforce that is much more than just a killing machine," said Hartung, before drawing attention to Hegseth's recent efforts to eliminate diversity programs at the Pentagon. If he wants to strip down what he sees as extraneous activities, it is the height of folly to eliminate programs designed to curb racism and misogyny in the ranks - which are deeply divisive when they are not dealt with - while continuing to support things like golf courses which have nothing to do with promoting his goal of a more capable fighting force."

The post Pentagon Keeps Pouring Cash Into Golf Courses - Even As Trump Slashes Government Spending appeared first on The Intercept.