President Trump Announces New Plan for East Potomac Golf Links

The Trump administration has escalated its push to remake East Potomac Golf Links, the National Park Service–run municipal facility in Washington, D.C.

On Sunday morning, President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that the Department of the Interior and architect Tom Fazio had “developed a plan to build a World Class Championship Golf Course on the site of the current East Potomac Golf Links.” Work will begin November 15 and last roughly 15 months, he said.

The plan he shared shows a single 18-hole course covering nearly all of East Potomac Park, with the remaining land devoted to a clubhouse, parking lot, short-game area, and three-sided driving range.

In other words, the new design would replace East Potomac’s current golf offerings — an 18-hole course, two nine-hole courses, and a mini-golf course — with one very long 18-hole layout. It also appears to eliminate the public areas surrounding the golf facility, including Ohio Drive SW, the Potomac Heritage Trail, and the 15-acre recreational space at Hains Point. Many D.C. residents use these areas and have expressed outrage at the prospect of losing them.

This was the administration’s first full acknowledgment of the scale of its ambitions at East Potomac Park. In May, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum posted a different plan that left the park’s non-golf amenities intact.

The announcement comes amid a court fight over the government’s actions at East Potomac. On Saturday, October 10, NPS workers and a tree-care contractor cut down roughly 430 trees on the golf course. In response, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who is overseeing a lawsuit over East Potomac, called an emergency hearing on Monday, October 12. She chastised Department of Justice lawyers for giving the court and the plaintiff insufficient notice of the tree removal and had NPS officials testify under oath.

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Reyes has scheduled another hearing for today, October 19, at which NPS acting director Jessica Bowron and Interior Department chief of staff Gregory Wischer are set to testify.

We’ll have a longer story on this hearing and the broader situation in Wednesday’s newsletter.