Inside Trump's Billion-Dollar Golf Empire

Today on Forbes, inside Donald Trump's billion-dollar golf empire. Donald Trump has a long history of embellishment around his success as a businessman, for years lobbying Forbes to pump up its estimates of his net worth, occasionally while using the name John Barron, a persona he invented, and even outright lying about the size of his penthouse and other properties. And when it comes to his portfolio of golf courses, Trump can stretch the truth like Legal documents reveal that Trump has improperly tallied sunk costs, overvalued land, and undervalued his membership liabilities, deposits he would have to return to his courses' golfers if they leave the club, while the financial disclosure reports he has released as president and other public filings offer little in terms of how he arrived at the numbers. Trump has also inflated the size of his golf courses' real estate. For instance, while he long claimed in marketing materials that Trump National Doral was 800 acres, property records show the resort is less than 700. But regardless of the inaccuracies or inconsistencies, make no mistake, Trump's golf empire is worth a fortune. Together, the 14 courses he owns, along with one other course that bears his name through a licensing deal, pulled in more than $350 million in estimated revenue in 2024. And Forbes values the properties collectively at roughly $1 billion, a sixth of a $6.1 billion net worth. Forbes estimates that Doral alone is worth $255 million net of debt, making it the second-most valuable property in his entire real estate portfolio, after the $564 million Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump's golf empire is also on the upswing, even after he sold off his lease for a public course in the Bronx in 2023 under pressure from New York officials and judges. For one thing, on top of the $60 million he reportedly received in that deal, Trump will pocket $115 million thanks to a provision that was triggered when Bally's was awarded a license to build a casino on the site in December. Meanwhile, operating profits at 10 Trump clubs in the US rose from $19 million in 2020, at the end of his first term as president, to $66 million in 2024, according to Forbes estimates. And new Trump-branded courses are under construction in Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam, as well as Indonesia, where he will have resorts on both Bali and Java. In a standard deal, he collects hefty licensing fees at the outset, long before the courses even open, and then continues to receive residuals for years to come. But the ventures are both business and pleasure for the president, an avid golfer who played an estimated 261 rounds during his first term in office, according to the Washington Post, and whose travel and security expenses during his second term have already cost taxpayers more than $100 million, according to the Huffington Post. Forbes drew up a scorecard of Trump's 15 current golf courses. The course at the top of that list is the aforementioned Trump National Doral in Miami, Florida. Its estimated revenue in 2024 was $110 million. Trump bought Doral out of bankruptcy in 2012 for $150 million — about $220 million in today's dollars — and embarked on a major renovation that cost $213 million, according to a 2020 New York Times report citing tax records. Further changes might be on the way for the resort, which has four 18-hole courses. In 2022, the Trump Organization proposed knocking down two buildings, reducing the number of guest rooms to 470 from 643, and building more than 2,200 residential units along with amenity and retail space. The plan was later downsized to include about 1,500 residential units and was preliminarily approved in 2024. According to Trump's 2025 financial disclosure, he pays 4.9% in interest on a 10-year, $125 million mortgage he refinanced in 2022. Doral lost much of its Northeastern clientele when Trump first ran for president, but business has been trending upward since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, with operating income reaching an estimated $25 million in 2024 — double the best year from his first term in the White House. This year, the Blue Monster, Doral's signature course, hosted the Cadillac Championship, the PGA Tour's first tournament there in a decade. The course also hosted live golf events from 2022 to 2025. For full coverage and to see the whole list of Trump's golf properties, check out Brett Knight's piece on Forbes.com. This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes. Thanks for tuning in.