Club managers apparently did not want to inconvenience their high-powered and high-paying members over Labor Day weekend by shutting down their courses to accommodate the president.
How much would it have cost to shut the courses down? How many members would have quit and joined other clubs? My guess is that it would not be made up by the “prestige” of having the Golfer in Chief play.
I can’t speak for the others, but I’m very familiar with Trump National in Somerset County, New Jersey. Two of its most notable neighbors aren’t exactly big fans of Barack Obama. It’s right down the road from where Steve Forbes has lived for years, and Woody Johnson (the heir of the Johnson & Johnson fortune and owner of the New York Jets) can walk there from his estate.
Uh...Winged Foot CC does not need prestige. It already has it as host to several U.S. Opens and being ranked as one of the greatest courses in the U.S. There is probably a waiting list to obtain a membership at these clubs also, so what value does a presidential visit really have?
Winged Foot doesn't need anymore prestige - they have hosted the US Open three or four times.