Reacting to Tom Fazio’s Plan for East Potomac Golf Links

On Thursday morning, as the PGA Championship got underway outside of Philadelphia, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum took to X to reveal Tom Fazio’s plan for a renovation of East Potomac Golf Links in Washington, D.C. “Like iconic public courses of Bethpage Black & Torrey Pines,” Burgum wrote, “East Potomac will offer locals — of the National Capital Region — championship-quality golf at affordable, highly discounted rates.”

“Affordable and highly discounted compared to what?” would be an appropriate follow-up question. The peak green fee at East Potomac is $48 for an 18-hole round on the weekend. The current operator of the federally owned facility, the National Links Trust, has promised many times to maintain this level of affordability. But once Fazio’s work starts, the NLT will vacate East Potomac, instead focusing its efforts on D.C.’s other two municipal golf properties, Langston and Rock Creek. I find it unlikely that the post-renovation operator will be as committed to a sub-$50 rate.

The good news? As far as I can tell from the low-resolution image Burgum posted, Fazio’s plan preserves Ohio Drive SW, the Hains Point Loop Trail, and the Hains Point recreational area. The Trump administration once considered scrapping these popular public amenities in order to create room for a tournament-ready course and to locate holes on the water, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions. Now, however, the government appears to have scaled back its ambitions.

Fazio’s plan shows a single, 7,660-yard, 18-hole course; a large, double-sided driving range; and a nine-hole pitch-and-putt layout wedged into the northeastern corner of the property.

If I were a D.C. resident, I would be relieved that the Trump administration no longer seems intent on subsuming the entire park into a massive championship golf complex. I’d still have a few concerns, though:

1. Reducing the golf offering from 36 holes (plus mini golf) to 18 “championship-quality” holes (plus a pitch-and-putt) would, by definition, make East Potomac Golf Links less accessible.

Right now, the facility ushers new players through a kind of golf curriculum. If you’re a beginning golfer in the D.C. area, you can start at East Potomac by messing around on the putting greens and the driving range. Then, once you achieve basic competence, you can play the nine-hole par-3 “Red” course. From there, you can graduate to the nine-hole executive “White” course, and finally to the 18-hole regulation “Blue” course.

This is a popular model. In 2025, East Potomac saw approximately 130,000 rounds of golf.

If the Fazio plan were implemented, the facility would no longer be a bustling hub for players of all abilities. Instead, it would consist of a pitch-and-putt at one end of the spectrum and a long, difficult, “championship-quality” course at the other — nothing in between.

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2. President Trump has publicly expressed his desire to bring a major championship to East Potomac. This was always an unlikely prospect; the facility sits on a small island in the middle of the Potomac River, with just one point of entry and egress. But now that we know the course will not be expanded beyond its current boundaries, the administration’s championship aspirations seem downright ridiculous. Where would you put… anything? Hospitality? Grandstands? A broadcast compound? Parking? Fans?

If hosting a big tournament at East Potomac is unrealistic, you have to wonder why it’s necessary to build a 7,660-yard golf course.

3. Relatedly, Fazio’s routing looks a bit of a mess. There are several long, awkward green-to-tee transitions — get a load of Nos. 14 and 15 at the southern end of the property — and numerous potential safety issues. These problems are likely the result of trying to jam a championship-length course onto a very small site.

4. Last week, the administration said the renovation would “incorporate themes of [East Potomac’s] original Walter J. Travis design.” The plan, however, bears no trace of either Travis’s 1920s reversible course, which the National Links Trust hoped to restore with the pro-bono help of architect Tom Doak, or today’s layout. Rather, the proposed course appears to be a standard-issue Fazio effort, complete with artificial ponds and a consistent disregard for strategic angles.

Since East Potomac is on the National Register of Historic Places, this issue will be litigated.

So yes, the plan shared by Secretary Burgum on Thursday should allay the worst fears of D.C. locals. But the fundamental flaw of the Trump administration’s vision for the property remains: both spiritually and logistically, major-championship golf is incompatible with the nature of East Potomac Golf Links.