Former President Donald Trump will not be playing golf until after the presidential election because of security concerns, NBC News reported Friday, citing people close to his campaign and familiar with the situation.
Trump has not golfed since the second assassination attempt on his life Sept. 15 by Ryan Wesley Routh, 56, at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Trump was told that federal agents could not ensure his safety to a degree that they were comfortable with if he were to play, NBC News reported.
Ronald Rowe Jr., the acting director of the Secret Service, told Trump he would need significant additional security given the proximity of some of his courses to public roads, The New York Times reported last month.
As president, Trump spent 260 days at his golf properties and generally has golfed at least once a week since he left the White House, according to NBC News. The longest Trump went without golfing was during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he had a two-month break.
Prosecutors have said Routh intended to kill Trump as he golfed at Trump International Golf Club. Routh, a struggling roofing contractor, condemned the Republican presidential candidate in a self-published book and dropped off a letter left months earlier with an associate referencing an attempted assassination on Trump, according to prosecutors.
"This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you," the suspect wrote, according to a court filing by prosecutors.
This was the second attempt on Trump's life. Trump was struck in the right ear when Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, shot at him at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.