Donald Trump turned up at the Presidents Cup this weekend to watch some of the nation’s best golfers.
But before the time the players stepped onto the first tee, the president looked ready for a match of his own. He often uses various tactics to challenge or assert his dominance over people he views as beneath him.
This time cameras caught a moment Trump never passes up, and all he needed was a willing opponent.
The POTUS came face to face with a member of the International team that defeated the U.S. team 19-11 at the 2017 Presidents Cup in New Jersey.
Trump touched down at Medinah Country Club in Illinois on Sunday, Sept. 28, with full pomp and circumstance.
Golf Digest reported that the Air Force One flyover shook the media center. But that wasn’t the only thing that caught people’s attention.
The Presidents Cup would be decided on the course that same day. At the first tee, though, Donald Trump seemed determined to claim a win of his own: powering over the star.
After briefly addressing the crowd, Trump met athletes as they arrived for their matches. In various footage from the day, he was seen greeting numerous athletes but things looked tense when he got to Australian pro Adam Scott.
Scott appeared to get an arm workout before taking a swing when he extended his hand. The president answered with his trademark yanking handshake.
For a split second, the greeting looked more like a tug-of-war than a hello. Trump did the pulling, but the golfer kept his footing and his grip.
Neither man seemed eager to give ground as they locked in a silent battle over who was boss.
Trump’s forceful handshakes have long drawn attention, with observers reading them as attempts to establish dominance. This one happened in front of a golf crowd already primed for competition. The yank gave online spectators a second event to judge before the match even began.
“He is going to rip his arm out of his socket,” one person noticed on X.
“Trump just shook Adam Scott’s hand so hard it looked like he was trying to dislocated his shoulder,” a third viewer wrote. “More movement in that exchange than a Jim Furyk full swing!”
“Trying to intimidate. Fucking knob,” one critic posted. Another kept it brief: “That was agressive for sure.”
Another asked for more footage saying the brief clip, “Looked more like a thumb war?!”
Scott is hardly the first person outside a foreign delegation to get the treatment. In June, Trump interrupted U.S. national cyber director Sean Cairncross as the official praised him during an Oval Office event.
“Is that all?” Trump asked, drawing laughter before the two shared a forceful handshake.
One online viewer pointed out Cairncross’s visible flinch. The greeting gave viewers plenty to examine after the ceremony moved on. It was a familiar Trump flourish: a handshake that drew as much scrutiny as the words that came before it.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune offered a more competitive response in July.
Trump reached for his hand after landing at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, but the taller senator stood firm.
Thune returned the pressure, forcing Trump to lose his balance. Thune laughed as the president addressed him before moving on. Online viewers debated who had won that round. That round looked unusually close.
At June’s G7 summit, French first lady Brigitte Macron found herself in a prolonged version of the routine.
After a cheek-kiss greeting, Trump kept hold of her hand and pulled her inward for roughly 13 seconds. She maintained eye contact and her footing until he finally let go.
Her husband, French President Emmanuel Macron, had already faced Trump’s forceful handshake at the summit but held his ground as other world leaders.
King Charles III did much the same during an April White House visit, resisting Trump’s tug and reclaiming control of his hand. The shutdown led to a cold staredown that lasted seconds as the two exchange words.
When Trump tried again as the visit ended, he nearly pulled off Charles’ arm just to assert his dominance. Charles shut it down again, pulling back with a slight smirk before heading toward his car.
Trump’s greetings with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have looked different.
He welcomed Putin to Alaska in 2025 with a cordial handshake. Footage also showed a friendly, two-handed exchange in which the Russian leader seemed to swat the president’s hand. Xi, too, has appeared unwilling to be pulled into the routine.
The United States rallied to a 17-13 victory over the International Team to win the 2026 Presidents Cup at Medinah Country Club. Team captain Brandt Snedeker gave the president a little shoutout during his victory speech.
“One last shoutout: Donald Trump. President Trump. He told me, ‘I [am] going to bring energy today for you. You guys need it,'” Snedeker said. “I told him if we did this, he gets all the credit. So, thank you, President Trump.”
— Shane Bacon (@shanebacon) September 27, 2026
