DORAL, Fla. — On the day it was dedicated at the president’s golf club here, a crowd of President Donald Trump’s supporters gathered around the shiny, 22-foot-tall golden statue of him while Christian and Jewish clergy held a ceremony in his honor.
“Everybody is taking pictures of it, my people told me. It’s unbelievable,” Trump told his friend, Pastor Mark Burns, who held his phone up to a microphone for the group assembled May 6 at Trump National Doral.
“All day long they’re taking pictures. They stand up next to it and have their picture taken. It really came out beautiful,” the president said.
That was then, perhaps.
The monument to Trump, depicting him with right fist raised to the sky — the pose he struck in the moments after a bullet struck his ear during an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania — had gone up just days before Trump’s golf course hosted a PGA event. His course was busier than usual.
On Thursday, the scene was hardly bustling.
Questions to regular golfers here about the statue drew knowing laughs and some raised eyebrows. Out-of-town visitors said they were amused by it. Yet it wasn’t quite the flash point it had become online, with critics of Trump likening the statue to the biblical idolatrous golden calf, and the president describing it as a heaving destination for photographs.
“The Real Deal — GOLD,” Trump described the statue in a Truth Social post. Bronze covered with gold leaf is the reality.
Jorge Garcia used his phone to snap a photo of the statue as he stood nearby. He hadn’t walked over to gaze at it; the statue is situated directly across from the golf course’s concession stand. Garcia was waiting for the attendant to return so he could buy a bottle of water on a 94-degree day.
“It’s amazing,” Garcia said, somewhat sarcastically, with a smirk. If he had his own golf course, Garcia continued, “I would do it myself, but bigger.
“I’m kidding.”
Garcia has been playing at Trump’s course for the last two years. He said he has heard chatter from fellow players about Trump’s ego, having approved such an addition to the course, but said he can’t blame the president for doing so.
“He has power. If you have accomplished a lot in your life, you’re entitled to have it,” Garcia said of the statue.
It is but the latest, flashiest and largest of tributes to the president around the many properties bearing his name. The golf shop here features a large portrait of Trump pointing at the viewer, a work by Marshall Parks. Covering other walls are old framed magazine covers of Trump. Golf club head covers are for sale with Trump’s face on them — and blond synthetic hair sticking out. A pair of Trump sneakers are on display in a shadow box at the club’s entrance.
This week, the Republican National Committee was meeting in the Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom of the Donald J. Trump Building on the property.
Early Friday morning, Trump posted a picture of the statue on Truth Social, saying the people playing his course “are absolutely in love with it” and thanking a group of supporters who commissioned it “who just wanted a statue of yours truly.”
“With time, it will become a Landmark!” Trump wrote.
In a rare shady spot around the corner from the Trump statue, a woman practiced after playing 18 holes.
“It’s his course. It’s his property,” the woman said rather delicately as she discussed the “acquired taste” of the decor style around Trump National Doral. “I wouldn’t put one in my home, because it’s not my thing,” she added, agreeing to be identified only by her first name, Andrea.
If Trump wanted to put up a statue “with a piece of bacon on his head,” he could do that, too, Andrea said.
“His courses are really nice.”
Down the course, a group of men visiting from Michigan on an annual golf trip — their first time at Trump Doral — had been looking forward to seeing it for themselves.
“It’s harmless,” said Zach G., who also did not want his full last name used. He said he first saw the statue online before their trip and laughed. He thought the location — mostly only seen if sought out, or when someone is buzzing by in a golf cart — was right.
“It’s not like you’re at the pool and staring at it, you know.”
He thought the event it was marking, Trump’s defiance after surviving an attempted assassination, “is an important moment” to remember.
“And at the end of the day, it’s golf,” he continued. “It’s meant to be casual and fun.”
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