US President Donald Trump says he does a lot of business on the golf course, after all, he's spent eight of 10 weekends in office on the green.
But his golfing diplomacy has come at a price, with the Secret Service spending almost US$17,000 (NZ$24,000) in the past two months on hiring golf carts at the President's Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, receipts show.
The transactions were published by a CNN reporter showing three instances of "golf cart rental for POTUS visit" on February 2, March 2 and March 3 totalling US$16,685 (NZ$23,673).
There is also another charge for equipment rental of US$8000 (NZ$11,351).
But the company, Golf Car & Utility Vehicle Distributors, based in Miami, Florida, seems to have had dealings with the Secret Service since at least 2012, according to government spending transparency site USAspending.gov.
Mr Trump's latest visit at the weekend was his 13th golfing trip since taking office in January.
He'd previously talked about the importance of such trips trumpeting their effectiveness in an interview earlier this year.
"That's the one thing about golf - you get to know somebody better on a golf course than you will over lunch," he said.
In February, Mr Trump hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe which went down a treat with Japan's voters with a poll showing two-thirds thought the visit went well.
On another occasion in February, Mr Trump played a round of golf with pro golfer Rory McIlroy though there was some dispute about how much golf the President played that day.
Newshub.
