The newly revealed friendship between Donald Trump and British golfing legend Sir Nick Faldo has been billed as one of the world’s most unlikely bromances.
The former US president and the ex-champion player seemingly have little in common other than a love of golf, a history of failed marriages and reputations for not engaging in social courtesies.
Sir Nick, 67, has kept his political views to himself over the years, although it has been recently assumed that he has Conservative sympathies with his fourth American wife Lindsay De Marco being a fanatical Trump supporter.
Trump revealed their friendship at an election rally in Montana which Sir Nick attended with Lindsay who is an alleged former topless dancer on her seventh marriage.
Golfer Sir Nick Faldo and his wife, Lindsay De Marco, pose with Donald Trump in a photo posted on their Instagram page
Describing Sir Nick as ‘a major friend of mine’, Trump even bizarrely claimed in a speech to supporters that he might offer the sportsman a job in the White House if he was voted in as President again.
But MailOnline can now reveal that the links between Trump and Sir Nick go back many years, pre-dating his marriage to his fourth wife who was named Mrs Conservative US in 2012.
It was reported in January 2013 that billionaire businessman Trump had hired Faldo to redesign his Red and Gold golf courses at the Doral resort and spa in Miami which he had bought the previous year.
Faldo described their partnership, four years before Trump was inaugurated as President in January 2017, as ‘entertaining’ and added that it was ‘delightful’ to work for him.
Donald Trump and Sir Nick Faldo pose together atthe Mar-a-Lago estate in 2009
The pair were also pictured in a good luck gesture as they tossed coins into a new fountain that Trump had built at the Doral resort in the style of Rome ‘s famous Trevi fountain.
Hertfordshire-born Faldo who had a home at the time in Winter Park, Florida, quipped about the stunt saying: ‘I threw in a dollar, and he threw in a quarter.’
The golfer who was known for his brusque manner during his playing career posted a picture of them hurling coins behind their backs at the fountain when he congratulated Trump on his election victory against Hillary Clinton in November 2016 in a Twitter post.
His gushing tweet stated: ‘Mr President, that was a #Major win — @realDonaldTrump ! Powerful lucky fountain…PS — Can I have my quarter back? #Souvenir !!!’
The post attracted only 27 comments at the time, most of them from Sir Nick’s followers condemning him for backing Trump, and one even calling him a ‘sycophant’.
Sir Nick who was knighted in 2009 and won three Open champions and three Masters during the 1980s and 1990s, has long had close links to the United States.
The player who grew up as an accountant’s son in Welwyn Garden City took up golf at age of 14 after watching Jack Niklaus play in the Masters in 1971 on his family’s new colour television.
Within four years he became English amateur champion and won the British Youths Open championship in 1975 before getting a golf scholarship at the University of Houston.
Nick Faldo of England plays a shot from a bunker at Augusta National Golf Club in April
Trump during a round of golf at his Turnberry course in May 2023
But he only attended college for ten weeks due his studies distracting him from his golf, and he turned professional in 1976, becoming the youngest Ryder Cup player in 1977 when he won all three of his matches, even beating his hero Niklaus.
In 1987 when he won the Open Championship for the first time, he was pictured sharing a joke on the UK’s famous Sunningdale course with prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s husband Denis during a PGA Pro-Am tournament.
Sir Nick who won more major golf championships during his career than any other player since World War One concentrated on playing in the US from 1995, winning his last big title, the Masters at Augusta, in 1996.
His final major tournament win was the Nissan Open in Los Angeles in 1997, the same year that he set up his Faldo Golf Institute in partnership with the Marriott Hotel group with branches in the US as well as Hertfordshire.
Sir Nick’s marital life has been even more up and down than that of Trump who had three children with his first wife Ivanka before their 13 year marriage ended in divorce, one with second wife Maria Maples, and son Baron with current wife Melania.
The golfer married his first wife Melanie Rockall in a church ceremony in 1979 when guests formed a guard of honour with an arch of golf clubs for them to walk through.
The pair split in 1984 after she reportedly discovered he was having an affair with his manager’s secretary, Gill Bennett.
Sir Nick suggested that his first marriage was not right from the start, saying: ‘We were happily married for eight months… Unfortunately, we were married for four-and-a-half years.’
After their divorce, he married Bennett and the couple had three children – Natalie, Matthew and Georgia.
But he and his second wife split in 1995 after he began seeing then 20-year-old US golfing student Brenna Cepelak. Brutally, Benett hit out at him at the time, describing him as ‘socially, [sic] a 24-handicapper’.
Sir Nick’s three-year affair with Cepelak also ended in dramatic fashion when she reportedly smashed up his Porsche with a golf club, causing £10,000 of damage after she found out about his new flame Valerie Bercher.
According to the Mirror, Faldo said at the time: ‘I was praying she didn’t use my best clubs. You should have heard me sigh with relief when I found out she’d just picked up an old wedge I’d left lying in the garage.’
Sir Nick and Bercher married in a lavish ceremony in 2001 and had a daughter together, but they divorced five years later.
The golfer met his fourth wife who is known as Lindz in 2018. They were due to marry at a glitzy Kensington Palace bash which was scuppered by the Covid pandemic in 2020.
They instead wed in an intimate beachside wedding in the Florida Keys, attended by just 16 guests due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Sir Nick spoke of their shared history of marriage disasters, saying: ‘We’ve both had experiences and have moved on from them. Although you can’t change the past, you can learn from it. We live in the now. Lindsay and I are really connected.’
Commenting on their nuptials, one of Lindsay’s ex-husbands, Randy Heine, likened the couple to ‘golf’s answer to Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’.
He also referred to her six previous marriages, saying: ‘Lindsay has enough husbands for us all to be ushers at the wedding.’
Heine claimed that his ex-wife had been a topless dancer, which was backed by a former manager of a bar she used to work at, although she has denied this.
She later worked as a manager for one of Heine’s businesses which was raided by drugs officers. Lindsay pleaded no contest and received a $250 fine and six months probation.
Two years later she struck a deal and entered a guilty plea to one charge of ‘use of interstate conveyance to ship drug paraphernalia’, and was sentenced to six months of house detention.
She and Sir Nick moved from Florida to a farm in Montana in 2022, after he announced that he was retiring from being a full time golf analyst for CBS Sports to spend more time with her.
The couple had bought a 125-acre ranch in Montana in 2020 and built a new farmhouse called Faldo Farm
Their home where they share with their three Weimaraner dogs and ‘assorted farm animals’ is close to Bozeman, where Trump’s election rally took place last Friday.
During the rally, Trump, who claims to have a golf handicap of 2.8, name-checked Faldo and his ‘beautiful wife’ to the crowd before touting him for a US government role.
Trump told his fans: ‘This guy is a major golfer. He is a major friend of mine. One of the best ever. They knighted him in England or the UK. And he just knew how to win.
‘He could take people, he’d play the best players in the world, and they always folded in front of him.
‘In fact, I think I need to bring him into government ’cause we like to get other people to fold. And his nickname is ‘Foldo’ because he makes everyone fold, but his name is Faldo. Nick Faldo and his beautiful wife, Lindsay. Where is Nick?’
Trump then turned to point to the retired golfer, who was sitting several rows back from the podium.
The presidential hopeful rambled: ‘That guy can play golf… He’s won six majors and many, many tournaments, and he’s one of the greatest golfers ever.
‘It’s an honour, as a golfer. You are a piece of work. He’s a tough cookie, too. You talk about a tough cookie. That’s a tough cookie.’
Lindsay made a beeline for the Republican presidential nominee at the rally, beaming as she posed with him and her husband.
She frequently shares her support for Trump on social media, and last month posted an image to Instagram of a red MAGA cap with a halo around it.
After Trump survived an assassination bid on July 13, she posted a picture of him raising his hand in defiance, and captioned it: ‘This is the only man I want leading our country!’.
Before Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, she often criticised him.
She posted a picture of President Biden in June as he spoke on CNBC, questioning what they had done to his face, saying: ‘Can I ask CNBC what happened? Could it be your video facial softening software is in need of a tune up???’
In another post, she included a slowed-down video of Biden at a D Day commemoration in France, writing: ‘What on earth? Please put an end to this madness!’
Lindsay is long known to have held right wing views with her fifth husband being multi-millionaire Scott Sangalli who is believed to have been close to failed US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
When she won the title of Mrs Conservative US 2012, she said: ‘One side or size doesn’t fit all, the liberal agenda isn’t for everyone.
‘The pageant sends out the message to women that being a conservative woman or young lady is a choice like any other.
‘If it’s their choice, then they should embrace it, and the Conservative US Pageant is the perfect place to showcase conservative women of all ages and to celebrate conservatism in America.’
Sources have reportedly said Lindsay who now calls herself Lindz Faldo ‘revels’ in being referred to as a Lady.
One source told The Mirror: ‘Lindz has found everything she wants in a husband – handsome, kind, a knight and a multi-millionaire. What more can a girl ask for?’