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It turns out President Trump's handicap scores have been hacked

May 18, 2019
President Trump And First Lady Melania Depart The White House

Drew Angerer

We hope you're sitting down. Apparently the United States presidency has been hacked.

Well, at least the president's GHIN handicap, that is. On Friday, we relayed the story that, for the first time since October, President Donald Trump posted a score to the USGA's system. This was notable on two fronts. Despite playing 175 times since taking office, Trump rarely inserts his scores to GHIN. Moreover, the score in question was a 68. The president has been known to play a game not adherent to the rules, but a 68, and on a tough track (75.5 rating)? As this president has been wont to say, a whiff of "fake news" surrounded the story.

On Saturday, we got a more plausible explanation for the 68: Someone had hacked into Trump's GHIN score, as three more scores—all in the 100s—were posted on Friday afternoon.

According to Alex Raskin of the Daily Mail, a USGA spokesperson said the scores are erroneous.

"As we dug into the data it appears someone has erroneously posted a number of scores on behalf of the GHIN user," the USGA told Raskin. "We are taking corrective action to remove the scores and partnering with our allied golf associations and their member clubs to determine the origin of the issue."

Man, what type of world are we living in where the proceedings of the Oval Office are affected by outside influences.