Kai, Donald Trump’s media niece sneaking into golf’s elite | Sport

Her name is Kai Trump, she is 18 years old and the eldest of the president of the United States’ 10 grandchildren. His father is Donald Trump Junior. His mother, Vanessa, is in a romantic relationship with Tiger Woods. With eight million followers across Tik Tok, Instagram, YouTube and X, he is a social network star. Every image or video you post goes viral. He participated in his grandfather’s electoral campaign to attract the vote of young people. He has his own clothing brand, which he advertises in the White House. And she is an amateur golfer who this Thursday makes her debut in a tournament on the American circuit, the most important in the world, thanks to a sponsorship invitation.

Sports, politics and the media universe come together in Kai Trump, the student from Benjamin High School in Palm Beach, Florida, who will study and play at the University of Miami next year. For now, he will have the opportunity to meet the best golfers on the planet, such as Nelly Korda, at The Annika, an LPGA event, the tours American, who is also contested by the Spanish Carlota Ciganda, Azahara Muñoz and Julia López. The tournament granted him a “sponsor exemption” to “grow the game of golf among a younger and more diverse audience.” And there Kai Trump is an asset, used to climbing the lectern at the Republican Convention to defend his grandfather’s ideas before the last elections. “To me he’s just a normal grandpa, giving us drinks and sweets when our parents aren’t looking,” he joked. The American president financially supports the tournament to which he invited his niece and which offers 3.25 million dollars.

Donald Trump’s close relationship with golf has extended to Kai, a player in the American Junior Golf Association (ranked 461st) and who has Allan Kournikova, brother of the famous former tennis player, as his caddy. Its hook is much more media than sporting. On the pitch he doesn’t shine among the best. But outside it is devastating. His YouTube channel (1.35 million subscribers) contains, for example, a 28-minute video in which he shows how he lived a day with his grandfather Ryder: from the trip on Air Force One to donuts for dessert at dinner. In another X post, he poses at the White House wearing sweatshirts with his initials, KT, for $130 a piece. Or show off his grandfather’s birthday present, a $100,000 Tesla. He also told from the inside the election night in which Trump won the last elections and the launch of a SpaceX rocket with Elon Musk.

LGPA clashes with Kai. “This tournament is attracting unprecedented attention. The numbers online are spectacular. This is making women’s golf grow,” celebrates Justin Sheehan, the club’s director of operations. “It fits our mission to empower women,” adds Swedish legend Annika Sörenstam, host of the event. Kai has no shortage of advice: “My grandfather can’t come to visit me because he’s busy ruling the world. He told me not to be nervous. And Tiger, to have fun.”