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House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, the most prominent opponent of casino gambling in Massachusetts, has played golf at a pair of exclusive clubs in Florida recently with an official from Suffolk Downs, at the same time the track owners have been aggressively pursuing a gaming license for their East Boston site.
In addition, DiMasi also received an invitation to play with Donald Trump at the ultra-exclusive Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach earlier this month - as Trump carefully eyes Massachusetts for a possible casino development. A DiMasi aide said the speaker declined the invitation - though his rejection came at the same time the Globe was making inquiries about his schedule.
During DiMasi's two recent rounds of golf with Boston businessman and Suffolk Downs co-owner Joe O'Donnell, the two discussed casino gambling in Massachusetts, according to O'Donnell.
"I have talked to him about it," O'Donnell said in a recent interview. "I've talked to anybody who will talk to me. I tell him, 'I think the important thing, Sal, is jobs. It's revenue for communities.' That's what I say. Then I say, 'Is this a par 4 or par 5?' "
O'Donnell is a widely respected, politically connected businessman and philanthropist with a reputation as a friend of those in power and those in need. The Everett native has been one of the top shareholders at Suffolk Downs for 18 years, and been friends with DiMasi for three decades.
One of their rounds of golf was at the McArthur Golf Club, a 990-acre course in Hobe Sound, Fla., where DiMasi's brother-in-law is a member. The other round was played at the Floridian Yacht & Golf Club, the private retreat of Miami Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga, where O'Donnell has privileges.
According to a 2003 Business Week story, Huizenga spent as much as $75 million building the course for himself, then extended invitations to a select group of professional touring pros, corporate chieftains, and Hollywood celebrities to use the facility.
DiMasi did not pay for the outing at the members-only course, O'Donnell said.
"He can't possibly," O'Donnell said. "They won't accept it."
Last night, O'Donnell called the Globe to add that he would get a bill and send it to DiMasi.
DiMasi, through his spokesman, David Guarino, declined to respond to repeated requests for interviews about his golf games with O'Donnell and his invitation to play with Trump.
Guarino repeatedly stressed that DiMasi is longtime personal friends with O'Donnell, and that his opinions of casino gambling would not be swayed during a round of golf.
It is the invitation from Trump that is in dispute. Trump, reached by a Globe reporter on his cellphone on Saturday afternoon, confirmed he had met recently with DiMasi during an encounter at a cocktail party at the Mar-a-Lago Club, an exclusive, Trump-owned estate in Palm Beach. But Trump said he never had plans to play golf with the speaker.
"He's a great guy, a really great guy," Trump said of DiMasi. "We met briefly, but nothing to do with casinos."
Added Trump: "We were never scheduled to play golf. He's too busy working to play golf."
That assertion, however, appears to be contradicted by DiMasi's office. Guarino, his spokesman, said the speaker was invited to play at Trump International - where royal palm trees line the perimeter, caddies wear lily white outfits, and the initiation fee has been reported to be $350,000 - but turned down the invitation. Guarino would not say whether DiMasi initially accepted and later canceled.
"He was invited to play with Donald Trump and decided it wouldn't be appropriate," said Guarino. "He declined the invitation and invited Mr. Trump to come to Boston to talk about his casino plans."
In addition, a worker who answered the phone in the pro shop at Trump International last week was asked by a reporter if DiMasi was scheduled to play with Trump. She responded that they were supposed to play over the weekend but that the game was canceled.
DiMasi's brother-in-law, Cape Cod luxury realtor Robert Kinlin, said in a telephone interview from his condominium in Palm Beach that a Trump assistant called Kinlin to extend the invitation. Kinlin, in turn, passed it along to DiMasi, and DiMasi declined several days before they were scheduled to play, leaving it to Kinlin to pass along regrets to Trump.
"Trump was, for lack of a better word, disappointed," Kinlin said. "But he understood."
"I sure would have liked to play," he added. "We're all big golfers."
But about two weeks earlier, Kinlin, DiMasi, and their wives were invited by Trump to Mar-a-Lago. At an event sponsored by the Robb Report - a glossy magazine that reviews Lamborghinis, charter jets, and luxury yachts - Trump met DiMasi and spent about 20 minutes with him.
"He's done a great job for Massachusetts, and he's a great representative," Trump said in the phone interview. "But we just met briefly."
Of the two rounds with O'Donnell, the one at the Floridian took place about two months ago, O'Donnell said. The game at McArthur was played earlier this month. Kinlin, who is the brother of DiMasi's wife, Debbie, is a member of McArthur.
"You don't go to play golf and change his mind," O'Donnell said of DiMasi. "You give him information and he decides. I don't know which way he'll go. I hope he goes the way I think he should go.
"If he comes out and kills this [casinos], we'll play golf again next year, or next month. If I didn't, what kind of a friend would I be?"
O'Donnell said he has never paid any of DiMasi's fees to golf, although they bet on the games, and DiMasi usually wins.
"He's much better than I am," he said. "Do we bet? Yeah, we bet like 10 bucks. Five dollars on a Nassau, or two on closeout. Stuff like that. I love playing with him. He's fun, and he's competitive."
In fact, DiMasi is a famously avid golfer who sports an 8.2 handicap at his home course, Ipswich Country Club. His game has led him to occasional bouts of controversy, beginning in 1994 when he was ordered by the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance to repay nearly $1,000 for a golf trip to Puerto Rico that he funded with campaign money.
In 2005, he was videotaped at a Monday charity tournament by a Boston television station as the state budget remained unresolved. Later in 2005, the Globe reported that he had played at least 11 weekday rounds of golf from May through early October during the first year of his speakership.
The regular play allowed him to cut his handicap index from an 8.1 to a 5.7 - a reduction that United States Golf Association officials lauded as highly unusual. The index is roughly equivalent to the number a golfer shoots above par.
DiMasi is also widely known around Boston as being at least an occasional golf partner of Charles Sarkis, who owns Wonderland Greyhound Park in Revere. Sarkis has expressed strong interest in a casino license, and is a member of at least two South Florida clubs.
In a recent telephone interview, Sarkis said he played with DiMasi only once within the last year - at a charity tournament in Ipswich.
Sarkis, who wants to convert Wonderland to a casino and has been in discussions with Trump, Suffolk Downs, Foxwoods, and Mohegan Sun as possible partners, was reached last week on his way to the airport to golf in Florida. "Absolutely, categorically, I am not playing golf with him," Sarkis said. "Not this week. Not next week. Not in the foreseeable future."
Guarino, DiMasi's spokesman, said the speaker has been close friends with O'Donnell and Sarkis for decades - since even before he was a state representative - and that his view on legalized casino gambling would not be swayed by them. "As you know, the speaker meets with both sides on any issue in his office and outside his office," said Guarino. "In this case, he's on a family vacation and is acting accordingly. They're enjoying long walks on the beach, swimming in the pool, and spending quality time with family and friends. Nothing more.
"The speaker's position on casinos has been quite clear. He's skeptical of the governor's plan and is concerned about welcoming a casino culture into the Commonwealth," he said.
DiMasi has met with several casino executives in his office. He met in August with multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who has built casinos throughout the world and wants to open another in the Marlborough area.
O'Donnell said he and two other top Suffolk Downs executives - Richard Fields and Bill Mulrow - met with DiMasi at his offices about six months ago.
In the mid-1990s, Trump sought to build a casino, marina, and residential development on Boston Harbor's Long Island. A meeting was scheduled with Mayor Thomas M. Menino at the Plaza Hotel in New York, but the mayor canceled and Trump's plans never gained political support.
"I've made a lot of money on the golf course, not from playing golf but from being on the course with people I made deals with," Trump told USA Today last year. "Golf is an amazing business tool. You can learn a lot about a person's personality."
Sean Murphy of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Andrea Estes can be reached at estes@globe.com. Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
