Donald Trump not so subtly told supporters in Pennsylvania that anyone who spent time with Arnold Palmer in a locker room knew the celebrated golfer was “all man.”
According to the late, great sportsman’s 68-year-old daughter, the admiration may not have been mutual.
Campaigning in Palmer’s hometown of Latrobe, Pa., Sunday, Trump spoke freely for more than 10 minutes about the PGA Tournament champ known as “The King.”
“When he took the showers with other pros, they came out of there,” Trump told supporters at a rally. “They said, ‘Oh my God. That’s unbelievable.”
Peg Palmer Wears told the Associated Press Sunday she was neither surprised nor upset by Trump’s comments about her dad, who died in 2016, shortly before Trump was elected president. Nor was she impressed.
“I think it was a poor choice of approaches to remembering my father, but what are you going to do?” she told the Associated Press Sunday.
The pair of Republican golfers, Palmer Wears said, bonded over “an interest in golf and a love of golf.”
But when Trump first campaigned for president nearly a decade ago, Palmer Wears told the Sporting News her father saw a side of the Queens native he didn’t appear to like.
“My dad had no patience for people who demean other people in public,” she said in that interview unearthed by the Daily Beast Sunday. “He had no patience for people who are dishonest and cheat.”
Palmer Wears said Trump was likely on his best behavior when he participated in golfing events with her father, though she recalls her dad once making a disapproving “uck” or “ugh” sound while watching the 78-year-old Republican party nominee on television.
“He was appalled by Trump’s lack of civility and what he began to see as Trump’s lack of character,” Palmer Wears claimed. “Then he said, ‘He’s not as smart as we thought he was,’ and walked out of the room.”
She was asked in 2018 what her father would’ve thought of Trump as the political figure he’s become.
“I think he’d cringe,” she said.
