In Washington, a federal judge has paused, for now, an administration plan to shut a 106-year-old public golf course that sits a few miles south of the White House. The decision reflects a familiar tension in public life: a government's stated reasons for reshaping shared land, weighed against the public's claim to that land and the procedures meant to protect it. The case is not finished, and the course remains open while the courts work through what was done, why, and how it was communicated.
Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Administration From Closing Historic DC Golf Course for Renovation
In Washington, a federal judge has paused, for now, an administration plan to shut a 106-year-old public golf course that sits a few miles south of the White House. The decision reflects a familiar tension in public life: a government's stated reasons for reshaping shared land, weighed against the public's claim to that land and the procedures meant to protect it. The case is not finished, and the course remains open while the courts work through what was done, why, and how it was communicated.
A federal judge in Washington has temporarily stopped the government from closing East Potomac Golf Links, a 106-year-old public course and park two miles south of the White House. President Donald Trump had said the course would shut on 15 November for renovation. In a 30-page ruling issued on Saturday, Judge Ana Reyes found the administration's justifications pretextual and said it had likely violated at least two federal laws in its rush to meet an arbitrary deadline.
The fight began in February, when the DC Preservation League and others sued over redevelopment plans. Reyes has overseen the challenge since. Her order does not require the administration to actively manage the park, but it bars closing the course while the case continues, and she noted the government had not shown it would suffer harm from keeping things as they are.
The dispute escalated in October, when the National Park Service began cutting hundreds of trees after giving the court just 15 hours' warning. Reyes ordered a halt to tree removal and required three business days' notice before further permanent changes. Trump nonetheless announced the 15-month closure and shared a rendering of the planned redesign, describing a future championship-level course. He has also called the current course "Trash Island" and cited dangerous trees and a failing seawall.
Reyes has also opened an inquiry into whether Justice Department attorneys made misrepresentations to the court. The renovation's timing and the findings of that inquiry will be decided in proceedings still to come.
A federal judge in Washington has stopped, for now, the closure of a 106-year-old public golf course and park that President Donald Trump had said would shut on 15 November. In a 30-page decision issued on Saturday, US District Judge Ana Reyes temporarily blocked the government from closing East Potomac Golf Links, which sits 2 miles (3km) south of the White House.
The ruling is the latest turn in a months-long legal fight. It began in February, when the DC Preservation League and others sued over redevelopment plans for the park. The course is one of three public courses run by the National Park Service in the capital, and Reyes has been overseeing the challenge since.
Reyes wrote that the administration's stated reasons for the closure were pretextual. She found that the government violated at least two federal laws "to meet an arbitrary deadline." The closure, she said, "runs counter to the public interest in utilising national parkland." She also noted that the government had not "plausibly identified any harm it would suffer" from a temporary restraining order that preserves the status quo while the case continues.
The order has limits. Reyes said Trump cannot close the park or its golf course, but she added that his administration is not required to actively manage either one.
The dispute sharpened in October, when the National Park Service began cutting down hundreds of trees. It told Reyes only 15 hours before the work was set to begin. After the trees came down, she ordered the administration to stop tree removal until at least 26 October and to give her three business days' notice before making any other permanent changes.
Trump announced his plans anyway. Despite the work stoppage, he said the course would close for 15 months from 15 November for renovation, and he shared a rendering of the redesign. An avid golfer, he has said the project will create "one of the Best and Most Spectacular Golf Courses anywhere in the World." He has called the current course "Trash Island," and said the renovated space would be open to the public while also built to host world-class tournaments.
In a post on Truth Social, he described the existing course as "old, broken, dilapidated, and of no further use or effect." He cited "falling, dangerous, and disease-infested trees" and a "collapsing and hazardous seawall." The BBC has contacted the White House for comment.
There is a second front. Reyes has separately opened an inquiry into whether Justice Department attorneys "have made misrepresentations to the court and otherwise violated ethical rules."
Because the restraining order only holds the status quo, the questions at the center of the case remain open: whether and when the renovation can proceed, and what the ethics inquiry finds. Both will play out in further proceedings before Reyes.
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