In another parallel world if Donald J Trump were a golfer at the Masters his progress might read something like this.

The fourth and last  round of the Masters has begun. After several patchy scorings rounds  left him six shots off the lead, Donald J Trump is about to tackle the 9th hole (a tricky par 4 with a severe slope). Trump has been wild off the tee, his usually reliable approach shots have deserted him and his streaky putter is misfiring badly. He needs to steady the ship and charge up the leaderboard. That charge has to start here on the 9th.

The 9th hole isn’t for the fainthearted. It requires skill, guts and a whole lot of bottle to do the right thing here. Most journeymen pros settle for a hard won but safe par. Champions are made at this hole. Losers are forever defined here. Trump knows this is where he takes the swing that either makes or breaks him.

If he screws up this hole and fails to make the cut Trump won’t be missed. This is his first Masters and he’s already let it be known that if he wins the tournament he’ll decline to wear the famous Masters green jacket and instead wear a top from his daughter Ivanka’s new golfing clothing line. 

Trump sizes up the hole one more time and then takes a typically lusty swing at the ball with his Trump VRD 3.0 driver.  By gosh he hits that ball far. It’s an odd thing and something you have to witness in the flesh to truly comprehend, but while Trump’s ball is in the air and his fans and haters hold their collective breath for the result, time itself appears to be suspended and Trump, for this long endless moment, appears capable of making miracles happen.

When Trump’s ball does land, it skips off the middle of the fairway and rolls into a truly nasty patch of rough. He’s got little chance of making a decent score from there. But that doesn’t matter to him or his fans. Trump confidently shoves his driver into his bag and strides off the tee. The loud cheers of emotional support from his fans easily drown out the announcements from the nearby course tannoy.  These buoyant, smiling, extraordinarily loyal Trumpers have brought a whole new dimension of fan/player interplay to the course and their continued presence over the coming years is likely to force the Augusta management team to develop new methods of safe, perhaps more engaged, crowd management. 

The real story here may not be about Trump, but rather his supporters. Trump is the first golfer to walk the grounds of the Masters who has understood that it’s not the lifting of the trophy that is the true mark of victory. The real triumph comes from the proud way Trump carries the hopes and dreams of all those thousands of fans he’s carrying around in his back pocket as he makes his way around the course.

The Trumpers want him to win of course, but they’re really here to put their boots on the ground of the most elitist, exclusive miles of real estate in America and give a hard, stubborn finger to the establishment. Trump may not lift the trophy but as long as he’s still in the game they can enjoy the ride and have a whale of a time stepping on the egos of a few pretentious, over fussy officials. The Trumpers finally have a potential champion who talks like them, who understands them, and is happy to represent them on and off the golf courses of America. Tiger may have been a class act, but he didn’t look or sound like them. Trump is their guy and they’re with him, come what may.

Trump may well be the first golfer to ever head to Augusta’s world famous eighteenth hole on the final day knowing he’s won something far more important than the Master’s trophy or the green jacket.