craigswan:Donald Trump has claimed The Open's organisers want to bring the tournament back to his Turnberry course on the Ayrshire coast.
‘gaslighting’.
This is defined by “manipulating another person into doubting their own perceptions, experiences or understanding of events”. Basically, in our world, it’s telling untruths until such time that people basically give up on the truth.
This is how we should generally judge Donald Trump’s assertion last week when he was hosting the LIV Golf season finale that the R&A wanted The Open to return to Turnberry.
“They want to, I can tell you they want to come back,” he told reporters. “The Open wants to come back.
“It is rated the No 1 course in Europe now. We did a big surgery and it has gotten great reviews, even from people who hate me. They want the Open to go back.”
This was faithfully reported by the good journalists present. But nevertheless, it was simply not true.
Martin Slumbers, chief executive of the R&A, reiterated – with some frustration – that their policy had not changed. It is, if you translate R&A diplomat-speak, we’re not going anywhere near that place until that man’s name is off it.
Although official stated policy for just two years, it’s actually been unofficial policy since 2015. Then the R&A were chastened by Trump’s attention-seeking antics during the Women’s Open at Turnberry.
“Everyone wants to go to Turnberry,” added Trump last week. That’ll be why it lost £2.3 million last year, no doubt, the sixth successive year it lost money.