Donald Trump’s championship wishlist for a public course in Washington runs long: the US Open, the PGA Championship, the Ryder Cup, the Presidents Cup. All of them, he says, hosted on a city municipal track.

Trump has announced that East Potomac Golf Links will close on November 15 for a renovation he expects to take about 15 months. The redesigned course, he said in a statement, “will be open to the Public while, at the same time, designed to the Highest Level of Golf and able to hold World Class Tournaments such as the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship, the Ryder Cup, and the Presidents Cup.”

The existing facility, he said, is “old, broken, dilapidated, and of no further use or effect.” The Interior Department has brought in course architect Tom Fazio to lead the redesign.

430 trees down in a weekend

The scale of the groundwork is what pulled the project into open court. National Park Service crews began felling trees at East Potomac on the morning of Saturday October 10, a three-day holiday weekend, after announcing plans the previous afternoon to remove roughly 500. By the time the court intervened, 430 had come down, NBC News reported. In later court filings the Park Service put the total number of trees targeted for removal at the course at 729.

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The DC Preservation League and two local golfers sued the administration earlier this year, arguing the overhaul was being pushed through federal parkland without the environmental and historic review required by law. They were back in court the following Monday.

Reyes: “You did your absolute worst”

At a nearly four-hour emergency hearing on October 12, US District Judge Ana Reyes let the government have it.

“What has happened has cost the government all of its credibility with me in this case,” she said, according to CBS News.

When a Justice Department lawyer told her officials had done their best, she responded: “You did not do your best. You did your absolute worst.”

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The following day she issued a temporary restraining order barring further tree removal through October 26. The government must now give three business days’ written notice before any further irreversible changes to the course.

DOJ moves to oust the judge

By Friday the Justice Department had filed a motion asking Reyes to step aside. The filing called her conduct “nothing short of egregious,” per Newsweek, accusing her of belittling government attorneys, questioning their intelligence and allowing bias against the administration to shape the proceedings.

Reyes refused. In a 13-page opinion on Sunday October 18, she denied the recusal motion, acknowledging she had been “furious” and “beyond disappointed” during the hearing but concluding that judicial anger over events in a case does not meet the legal standard for disqualification.

The tree-cutting halt remains in place through October 26. A further hearing is set for Monday October 19, with Park Service acting director Jessica Bowron and an Interior Department official ordered to testify.

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