SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- If there are two qualities about Donald Trump that stand out, they are his penchant for braggadocio and his love of golf. Despite statements to the contrary, Trump frequently assures the American people and his nemeses in the press that he is an intelligent overachiever, with an exemplary academic record and IQ score to back up the claim. However, doubts abound. The universities Trump attended show no honors, meritorious distinctions or noteworthy grades. On Tuesday, a psychologist from San Narciso College emerged to clarify the discrepancy. “I looked at the president’s latest IQ test and discovered that he’s interpreting it the same way he would a golf score -- from an amazing round of golf. I mean, like, record-breaking.”

President Putt, Commander-in-Cleek

Throughout his campaign, Trump openly mocked President Obama for bilking taxpayers out of millions to bankroll his travel and golf holidays.

“President Barack Obama’s vacation is costing taxpayers millions of dollars -- unbelievable!” Trump wrote in one of two dozen tweets chiding Obama for an implied dereliction of duty.

Yet as Politico reported, “Budget watchdogs are criticizing the cost of President Trump’s visits to Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, Florida. Mr. Trump has been at his so-called ‘Winter White House’ the past three weekends. That’s 11 of his first 33 days in office. The travel has an estimated price tag of $10 million.” That figure already dwarfs an entire year of Obama’s vacation costs.

CBS News explained that “Obama racked up about $97 million in travel costs” during his tenure in the White House. The story concluded that Trump’s tax burden on the public, given the current rate of sojourns to his Florida resort, would “eclipse that by the end of his first year.” Steve Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, offered a defense.

“President Obama played golf to fit in with his betters -- not seem like he grew up in poverty, which he did,” Bannon said. “I don’t know of any Kenyan tribes that shoot 18 holes on the links. Now for President Trump, golf is a strategy session. It gives him a microcosmic view of the ideal world I’m, I mean he’s, trying to create. It’s visionary. On the course, Donald Trump experiences the America that should be. Pristine, rolling greens. Beautiful club houses. Discreet walls to keep out the non-members who otherwise threaten the sanctity and security of the land. Gorgeous women waiting on the members. And of course, the only colored people are the ones mowing the lawns or cooking the steaks or carrying the bags.”

Bannon also noted that of the few things that genuinely consume Trump, golf scores rank slightly above critical news stories or negative social media.

Donald Trump’s Incredible IQ Explained

In 2013, Trump boldly tweeted: “Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault.”

The Washington Post recalled another moment: “At one point, Trump rebutted criticism from columnist George Will and GOP consultant Karl Rove by saying: ‘I’m much smarter than them. I think I have a much higher IQ. I think I went to a better college -- better everything.’”

Trump regularly cites his schooling to support the assertions of genius. But as the Washington Post noted, Trump received his MBA from Fordham University, ranked 66th among national universities, and not the prestigious Wharton School of Business, the ivy league institution he attended for undergraduate work. School officials and former classmates admitted that Trump was a mediocre student who “rarely shined in class” and graduated without honors.

These revelations did little to suppress the president’s self-congratulatory rhetoric. When he sat down for an interview with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” this December, Trump again boasted of his vast trove of knowledge to discount his absence from intelligence briefings: “I don’t have to be told -- you know, I’m, like, a smart person. I don’t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years.” But doubts abound.

Skeptics, medical professionals, politicians and academics all question the new president’s fitness for duty, whether in regard to mental health or acumen. Recently, psychologist John Gartner, a former instructor at Johns Hopkins, violated the 1973 Goldwater Rule by diagnosing Trump with malignant narcissism without performing a physical examination. And on Tuesday, another psychologist has come forward to dispute Trump’s genius-level IQ.

Dr. Regis Ketamine, a professor at San Narciso College, emphasized that Trump sincerely believes he has a superior IQ, and is convinced that his test scores prove it. The problem, Ketamine pointed out, is that Trump does not understand the methodology used to calculate IQ scores.

“Considering Mr. Trump’s obsession with golf, I am utterly convinced he is reading his ‘stellar’ intelligence quotient as a golf score,” Ketamine said. “Put another way, the goal of golf is to record as few strokes as possible to make the hole. The lower the score, the better the game. If you’re shooting below 70, you’re pretty damn talented. Not so much if that’s where your IQ falls.”

The Guinness World Record credits the best golf game in history to Rhein Gibson, who shot a 55 at the River Oaks Golf Club in May 2012. Gibson’s round included two eagles and 12 birdies. The rest of the game, he shot par -- the maximum number of shots recommended for first-class players on each hole. The score is the lowest, and therefore best, on record.

“You can certainly see how Trump’s IQ, if tallied as a golf score, would far exceed the abilities of most mortals,” explained Ketamine. “He beats Gibson handily. We’re talking the universe’s most amazing round of golf. I mean, like, record-breaking. Nothing but birdies and eagles. So in every context, it’s accurate to say that Mr. Trump’s IQ is way, way, way below par.”

(c) 2017. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. All articles are works of satire. See disclaimers.