D onald Trump loves hot dogs— loves them. But he reserves a particular devotion for the ones served at the snack shack beside the 11 th tee box at Trump National Golf Club outside Washington, D.C.—wieners that, on Trump’s personal scale of human achievement, probably rank somewhere between mankind’s first glimpse of gold in a riverbed and the construction of Trump Tower.

“He has this weird, very odd pride about how good the hot dogs are,” says a former club employee, who remembers Trump personally ensuring that everyone in his orbit experienced the majesty of the Trump dog.

“That’s his thing,” the employee says. “The chef has to be out there. And he’s like, ‘Chef, get everyone a hot dog—all these guys.”

And everyone means everyone —roughly 30 carts full of Secret Service agents included. But the president’s frankfurters are not free, according to an ex-employee. Ethics rules restrict agents from accepting gifts from those they serve. So Trump’s club charges the agency that protects him.

“It got to the point where we had to start a Secret Service account at the club so that he could see them getting the hot dogs,” the employee says, “but then we could charge the Secret Service for the hot dogs.”

There, in one all-beef transaction, is the Trump presidency in miniature: Trump owns the club. Trump controls the chef. Trump doles out the hot dogs. Trump watches everyone eat them. Then Trump’s business sends the government the bill.

The presidency has its perks. Beyond the extra hot-dog revenue, there’s the freedom to set your own schedule. Sure, leading the country comes with responsibilities. But you could also just… go golfing. Since returning to the White House, Donald Trump has spent time at one of his golf courses on about 165 of his 600 or so days in office. These are not brief stop-ins, either. An analysis of dispatches tracking his movement daily indicates that the president has spent more than 1,400 hours at his golf properties during his second term. That’s about as much time as most people spend working their full-time jobs over an eight-month span.

“It got to the point where we had to start a Secret Service account at the club so that he could see them getting the hot dogs.” Former employee, Trump National Golf Club

“I think everybody knows that he spends plenty of time at his golf clubs,” says a White House spokesperson, who calls the president’s work ethic “unmatched” and touts his record as proof. “He has meetings, participates in fundraisers. There’s more to it when he visits his course than just golf.”

The clubs provide a retreat from public scrutiny. When Trump golfs, the press pool that follows him everywhere is forced to hole up in random hideaways—a local library in Palm Beach, tennis facility in Virginia and hotel in New Jersey—with limited visibility into what happens on the course. That doesn’t mean Trump is alone. He remains surrounded by people who almost all pay him or work for him. His golfing partners, not to mention various staff members inside the clubs, seem to spend more time with the leader of the free world than most members of Congress.

These insiders emerge overflowing with stories from a universe perfectly arranged to Trump’s specifications. The Coke is bottomless. So is the ketchup. When his foursome appears, other groups move—“basically parting the Red Sea,” one partner explains—as he barges through their game. Weekend after weekend, Trump enters this world as president proprietor, then leaves refreshed for the lesser business of running the country.

At least until his next tee time.

W hen Trump first became president, staff at his course outside D.C. learned to study his official schedule to figure out what kind of weekend they were going to have. “Basically, if there wasn’t something official on the calendar, he was coming.” Confirmation usually arrived a day before the visit from the White House valet, according to a club insider. Along with the notice, employees often found out if the president already had golfing partners or whether they would need to build a group around him. He frequently ended up with athletes and politicians. One former employee said the late Senator Lindsey Graham—who Trump recently described as “one of the few bad golfers that I loved playing with”—joined more than anyone else.

The days followed a distinct rhythm. “Everyone is on his schedule,” says a golfing partner. “The foursome all sits at the breakfast table, and you all have to have something, even if it’s a smoothie. He’s not going to sit there and eat while three guys wait for him.” According to two people familiar with the scene, the president’s order tends to be consistent: three strips of bacon and three eggs, cooked thoroughly for the germaphobe-in-chief.

Fueled up, Trump heads to the tee boxes, where he leaves little doubt that he’s a damn good golfer. “If he played from the correct set of tees for his age, he would break 80 almost every time,” says someone who has played with him plenty. Most 80-year-olds would let those sorts of scores speak for themselves. Not Trump, who seems to add another club championship, or six, to his suspiciously high total every year. “He ruins it by letting the ego get in the way.”

On the course, his style is speed. Grip it, hit it, move it. He plays through everyone, interfering with the rhythm of those in front of him, though they often delight in the experience. “One of his favorite lines,” says someone at the D.C. course, “is man, how lucky are you all to be members at my club?”

Similar scenes unfold at other Trump Nationals when he visits. In Jupiter, Florida, golfers spend the day hoping for a presidential sighting—and the anecdote that comes with it. “A lot of the members and guests that are playing that day are just like, ‘Oh, did you see him?’ They just are looking for a story out of it,” explains a former employee at the club. Adds someone who has witnessed the dynamic in Bedminster, New Jersey: “He is most happy at the club because he’s the big fish and everybody pays him some homage.”

Including the staff members, who still know who is the boss, even if the president has told the rest of the world he is uninvolved in his businesses. Trump shares opinions on details as small as the lines lawnmowers make and the angles trees obstruct. “Of course,” says a White House spokesperson. “Just like he weighs in on all of the details, from the ballroom to any renovations at the White House.”

Unexpected things can pop up when the president golfs. In 2020, hockey hall of famer Jeremy Roenick was at Trump National in Bedminster when the Secret Service suddenly closed in on the president with an ominous warning: “Air breach!” A small Cessna aircraft flew overhead, immediately pursued by a pair of F-16s throwing red flares as they redirected the pilot. When everything cleared, Trump got right back to the tee box. “I’m shaking,” Roenick says. “And he picks up his tee, and he says, ‘Now gentlemen, that’s f------ power.’”

On every hole , Trump hits first. Almost immediately, he’s over his second shot, which he may or may not play exactly as it landed. On the greens, he doles out gimmes from the next county. It all keeps things moving. “If you have a putt that’s not meaningful in the match, he’s knocking it back to you,” says someone who has played with him. “If you have a six-footer for bogey and I’m putting for birdie, your bogey doesn’t matter. Get out of here. Because we’re playing four guys, in carts, in two hours and 35 minutes.”

No time for standard cart-path rules either. Trump treats his machine like an all-terrain vehicle, pulling up to the edges of greens, tee boxes and wherever else he needs to hit, racing from shot to shot. “It’s just like trying to hang onto a hurricane,” says Rick Reilly, a sportswriter who once played with Trump and later published a book about the president’s golf game, “Commander In Cheat.”

“Now gentlemen, that’s f------ power.” -Donald Trump

The 11th hole is where golf gives way to gastrolatry. Trump arrives at the halfway house and chats with the executive chef, manning the grill for the occasion. On most days, members get foil-wrapped hot dogs left to drown in their own steam. When Trump is on site, they’re made to order, tucked into a warmed potato bun and grilled vertically, allowing the already oversized frank to balloon beyond its stated square footage, like the president’s other prized possessions . Staff at times push out 50 hot dogs to the entire golf-cart motorcade, but on easier days, target sort of a hot-dog cabinet, the roughly six to 10 people immediately around Trump. Some, still stuffed from breakfast, secretly arrange for slimmed-down dogs—an act of insubordination coordinated directly with the chef. “So Mr. Trump didn’t see it happening,” one explains.

The president, meanwhile, gives his hot dog the full Oval Office treatment: decorating it with a layer of condiments that looks gaudy to some, elegant to others. “He puts as much mustard and relish that you could possibly imagine onto the hot dog,” says one former employee. “Multiple times, we had to bring a golf shirt from the pro shop out so he could change in the halfway house.” A second former employee remembers things quite differently, describing the mustard application as “end to end” but “very artistic,” an S-shaped ribbon flowing down the dog that the president was careful not to spill: “He’s very aware of his look.” The White House press office says the shirts stay clean: “Not true that he frequently spills on himself.”

As the round marches on, Trump plays for keeps, even though he puts no money on the line. He has a history of switching partners mid-round and conveniently misremembering the score, according to one golfing partner. “You might say that he has a creative memory on how to keep the matches equal,” the source says. “If his team was three down or four down, he might announce that it was only two down.” Everyone goes with it, of course. “What are you going to do?”

A spokesperson for the White House brushes away such accusations, saying the president has won “close to 50 club titles,” up from the 36 Trump cited earlier this year , while insisting he does not change the score.

T hen comes the applause . When Trump enters the grill after his round, the members rise to their feet and clap—a ritual no one performed before he became president and one that now takes place at multiple clubs. “So weird,” says a former employee.

Guests often bring newly purchased apparel, like MAGA hats, to wait in the dining room for the guy who sold it to them, hoping he might raise the value with a Sharpie. Trump doesn’t just use any marker—his team carries around a custom variety with a girthy tip and an image of the president’s signature on the side. “The fans love that stuff,” an ex-employee says. “They would all buy it and then go down in the lunchroom.”

The president’s lunch order varies, but it often includes French onion soup and a bacon cheeseburger. In what may be a lone concession to Make America Healthy Again, he skips the bun. Staff are divided on just how much ketchup is involved. “You’re going to think I’m exaggerating,” says one former employee, “but it’s an entire bottle of ketchup on the cheeseburger. He’s eating it with a fork and a knife.” A second ex-employee says he uses more like a half-bottle, while a third says the president sometimes deploys none at all.

Hockey legend Jeremy Roenick, not a big ketchup guy, witnessed the president’s approach firsthand. “We ordered a big basket of fries, and they’re perfectly cooked, and he takes ketchup and puts ketchup all over them,” Roenick says. “I’m like, ‘You’re not supposed to put all the ketchup in the middle of the fries.’ He looks at me and goes, ‘JR, those are my fries.’”

Around 4 o’clock in the afternoon, after five or six hours of golf, hot dogs and condiment abuse, Trump usually leaves to get back to his other responsibilities. With the November midterms around the corner, he recently suggested he might take a break from golf, telling Republican lawmakers, “I’ll be with you 100%.”

Just not yet. Trump left Washington on Friday to spend the long weekend at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club.