Trump deal keeps Washington’s public golf courses open, reshapes management

Washington’s three public golf courses stayed open after the Trump administration and National Links Trust struck a deal that keeps municipal play in place while redrawing who controls two of the city’s most symbolic stretches of federal land.

Under the new arrangement, the nonprofit will receive a new long-term lease to run and redevelop Langston Golf Course and Rock Creek Park Golf. East Potomac Golf Links, on the Tidal Basin waterfront, will remain open only on an interim basis while the National Park Service prepares what it calls a historic restoration of the course.

The compromise ends, at least for now, the uncertainty created when the Department of the Interior terminated National Links Trust’s lease in December 2025. The nonprofit said it was “devastated” by that move after five years of managing the three courses. The National Park Service had signed the original 50-year lease on October 2, 2020, and National Links Trust began operating East Potomac, Langston and Rock Creek on October 5, 2020.

These courses carry more than recreational value. The Park Service says they are part of its mission to provide affordable golf opportunities in Washington and notes that all three were included in its 2019 history and design studies as National Register of Historic Places resources. Langston first opened in 1939. District of Columbia planning records say it was listed on the National Register in 1991 and added to the D.C. Inventory of Historic Sites in 2018, with a period of significance from 1939 to 1955.

Rock Creek Park Golf has its own deep history. It was built by architect William Flynn in the early 1920s, and National Links Trust describes it as one of the oldest public golf courses in the United States. The nonprofit says its Washington project began in late 2024 at Rock Creek, underscoring how recently the latest push to reshape the courses has accelerated.

East Potomac is where the politics now run hottest. A federal judge was drawn into East Potomac-related litigation in early May after reports that the administration planned to close the course and begin construction and tree clearing there. The controversy grew further when toxic metals, including lead and chromium, were found in soil at East Potomac Golf Links after debris from the White House East Wing demolition was dumped there.

The result is a familiar Washington bargain with a sharper edge: the courses stay open, but the fight over public land, historic stewardship and federal control has only moved to the next phase.