Trump says he'll be at Presidents Cup at Medinah as honorary chairman

Presidents at golf tournaments used to be a footnote, a photo op, a few holes with the winner before the motorcade pulled away. Trump treats it differently. He shows up, he stays, he talks to players like he's still one of them. Love him or not, that's a different relationship with the game than we've seen from the Oval Office in a long time, and honorary chairman at Medinah next month means he's doing it again for the second straight year.

There's an easy cynical read here, that this is just another stage for a guy who never met a spotlight he didn't like. Maybe. But golf has quietly become one of the places where Trump is simply comfortable being a person rather than a talking point, and that's worth noticing rather than mocking. The Presidents Cup isn't a culture war flashpoint. It's Americans versus an international team, decided by putts, and the fact that a sitting president wants to be physically present for that says something about what he thinks the job should include.

Compare that to the alternative most of the country got used to for years: presidents who treated ceremonial duties like chores to be delegated, showing up by video message or not at all. Whatever you think of Trump's golf habit, which critics have hammered him over since his first term, there's something almost old-fashioned about a president who wants to be at the matches, in the gallery, part of the event instead of hovering above it. Chicago suburbs in September will get a taste of that in person.