In a pre-dawn raid in November 1990, feds armed with warrants, padlocks, and chains seized everything Willie Nelson owned—his golf course, ranches, studio, all of it. Only one thing slipped through the IRS perimeter: Willie’s guitar, “Trigger.” Thirty-five years later, Willie still has Trigger. Oh, and he eventually got back the ranches, studio, and golf course. These days, Willie Nelson’s nine-hole course—nicknamed Cut ‘N Putt—dances like an old brown shoe through loblolly pines in the Austin hills. The parking lot is guarded by what folks in the music business call “a silver firecracker”—a big Airstream bus that Willie and friends call Honeysuckle Rose. (Willie’s been travelling again, headlining Farm Aid 40 at the age 92 and announcing another, and perhaps final, tour.)

Golf pro Fran Szal, 75 years young, greets all comers with a wry smile. For pilgrims like my wife and I, who have come from afar, he slips into stories as if they’re on his lips at all times.

“They took everything,” Szal recalled on our visit last year, adding with a chuckle. “But not … Trigger. Yeah, we managed to hide that.” We met him near Cut ‘N Putt’s rustic pro shop, which could pass for a set for the 1960s sit-com The Beverly Hillbillies. In a world forever in need of magic, Trigger appears to have its own powers. Rumor has it that Willie’s daughter aided its escape. But when pressed, Szal says only: “The family likes to keep some things to themselves.”

The fact remains: On the day the feds came to shut Willie down, Trigger somehow slipped out of bed, made it to the golf course, travelled by mail to Hawaii, and hid out until Willie got his house and taxes back in order. (Willie’s daughter Lana may have something to do with getting the postage right.) Of all the blessings in the world, the fact that the federales missed Trigger seems to be a story that is winning the fight with infinity.

Trigger (Shutterstock)

Trigger had accompanied Willie’s soft twang on “Stardust,” the now triple-platinum 1978 album that brought the mainstream to country. Can you look at the endless sky in these hills and not hear Willie’s voice singing Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies”? Willie wrestled that immortal song into our mortal world, his fingers caressing Trigger, the very instrument that birthed so many iconic tunes: “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground” (1980) ; “Always On My Mind” (1982) ; “On the Road Again” (1988).

My wife Monica and I had different reasons for journeying to Pedernales. She’s a fan. But our visit to Willie’s golf course was partly for my research on a book on Native-owned golf courses. (Formally, the course is called Pedernales, but its nickname is Cut ‘N Putt.) 

It’s a little-known history I was working to unearth. The Osage built a course in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, during the oil boom, which no longer exists. The Mescalero Apache’s course at The Inn of the Mountain Gods in New Mexico, built in 1975, remains a cherished masterpiece. With the advent of gaming, in 1988, more than 60 tribes, bands, and nations built courses.

Some, including me, count Cut ‘N Putt, purchased in 1979, as yet another early Native-owned course. Willie Nelson, after all, was twice named Outstanding Indian of The Year by the American Indian Exposition. In 2014, he and Neil Young were presented with buffalo robes for their work with Farm Aid and the Keystone Pipeline protests by the Oceti Sakowin, Ponca, and Omaha nations. 

But, as it is for others who believe they have Native roots in Arkansas and Texas (the states where Willie’s family lived), proof can be elusive. Nelson is on record saying his mother—Myrle Marie Greenhaw Harvey Nelson—was three-quarters Cherokee. In the Story of Texas, the Bullock Texas State History Museum reports this as fact. 

In an interview reported in The Encyclopedia of Arkansas, however, Nelson’s mother’s sister, Sybil Greenhaw Young (1923–1999), claimed it was her mother, Bertha Greenhaw (Willie’s grandmother), who was three-quarters Cherokee. In the same interview, Young also said her grandmother (Willie’s great-grandmother) was “full-blooded Cherokee” and that Willie’s great-grandfather was “half Cherokee and half Irish.” The encyclopedia separately reports that while Cherokees were known to live in that same area, Willie’s maternal grandparents were listed in U.S. Census records as white. 

None of these ancestors appear in the Dawes Rolls, a historic federal record from 1909 to 1914 that documented the enrollment of members of five tribes including Cherokees, and neither they nor Willie have ever been a citizen of the federally recognized Cherokee Nation, which enjoys tribal sovereignty and determines its own membership. Willie himself was born the year before the The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, the New Deal act (written by John Collier) that led most tribal constitutions in ensuing decades to develop a criteria for claiming Native heritage.

Given this history, and considering the social milieu that Willie came out of, it is perhaps not surprising that the Greenhaws and Nelsons did not formally demonstrate descent from an enrolled ancestor. Nevertheless, as late as a 2024 interview with Robert Sheer, Nelson again recounted the family stories that establish, for him, his mother’s Cherokee ancestry. Given this, the accolades from the tribes themselves, and Willie’s embrace of Native causes, I include Cut ‘N Putt as an early Native-owned golf course and one worth our pilgrimage. 

Regarding Willie’s ancestry, something firmly established is that he comes from a long line of musicians. And that was the other reason for our visit: my wife’s love of his music. In the rustic clubhouse, my bride, Monica, took out her phone and showed Szal the snapshot she keeps of her and Willie. They met at the South Shore Music Circus in Cohassett, Massachusetts, in 1992. “Back when he was younger,” she said.

Szal smiled. In the photo her beautiful face is tucked into Willie’s shoulder. He is wearing a red bandanna. Her smile is as wide as Texas. “I asked him who was the first one to sign his guitar,” she told Szal. He raised an eyebrow. “Leon Russell,“ she said excitedly. Szal nodded then and gave her a golf shirt. The logo? Trigger, of course.

Willie has said that the tone of Trigger is “beyond explanation.” After his Baldwin acoustic was damaged—in 1969, in circumstances that may have involved Merle Haggard and drinks—Willie bought the nylon string Martin N-20 from a luthier in Nashville named Shot Jackson. He had Jackson take the electronics from his busted Baldwin and install them in the Martin, and Trigger was born as what musicians call a Frankenstein, an instrument made of different, divergent parts.

Szal waved us out the door into a brilliant, winter sun. When asked if Willie is any good at the maddeningly difficult game of golf, he said diplomatically: “Willie plays ‘Feel Golf.’” Then he pointed past an unkempt fairway to where Willie built a studio, the very studio the Feds seized and had to return. Szal explained how Nelson’s working method became “cut and putt.” Cut a track, then play nine while the mixers mixed. Cut a track, then putt. Then do it all again. The first work produced in this golfing method of making music? Tougher than Leather, the 1983 album anchored by the hit “Pancho and Lefty.”

I asked Szal to clarify what he meant by “Feel Golf.” After showing another group of pilgrims to the first tee, Szal directed us to Willie’s rules, hand painted on some burlwood. Among them:

Par is what you set it at.
No more than 12 in your 4-some.
Missing balls are considered stolen. (No penalty.)
Bikinis Ok.

Szal, my wife, and I stood there laughing in the clear light. 

Willie and Trigger slowly won their battle with the IRS: He paid off back taxes, partly by releasing more songs under the title Who Will Buy My Memories? And Willie’s stuff came back to him—the Austin ranch. The Utah ranch. This studio and golf course, where Trigger would do its best work.

Given the seemingly supernatural powers of that six-string, I asked Szal how many years before Feel Golf would become the standard of play, when bikinis are ok and all lost balls would be considered stolen?

He wouldn’t venture a guess, but I came away convinced. In the end, we’d all be better off playing by Willie’s rules.

The post A Trip Through Willie Nelson’s Golf Course, His Unorthodox Rules, and His Uncertain Tribal Identity appeared first on The Texas Observer.

By MICHELLE L. PRICE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration set forth a new national security strategy that paints European allies as weak and aims to reassert America’s dominance in the Western Hemisphere.

The document released Friday by the White House is sure to roil long-standing U.S. allies in Europe for its scathing critiques of their migration and free speech policies, suggesting they face the “prospect of civilizational erasure” and raising doubts about their long-term reliability as American partners.

It reinforces, in sometimes chilly and bellicose terms, Trump’s “America First” philosophy, which favors nonintervention overseas, questions decades of strategic relationships and prioritizes U.S. interests above all.

The U.S. strategy “is motivated above all by what works for America — or, in two words, ‘America First,’” the document said.

This is the first national security strategy, a document the administration is required by law to release, since the Republican president’s return to office in January. It is a stark break from the course set by Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration, which sought to reinvigorate alliances after many were rattled in Trump’s first term and to check a more assertive Russia.

The United States is seeking to broker an end Russia’s nearly 4-year war in Ukraine, a goal that the national security strategy says is in America’s vital interests. But the document makes clear the U.S. wants to improve its relationship with Russia after years of Moscow being treated as a global pariah and that ending that war is a core U.S. interest in order to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia.”

The document also is critical of America’s European allies. They have found themselves sometimes at odds this year with Trump’s shifting approaches to the Russia-Ukraine war, and are facing domestic economic challenges as well an existential crisis, according to the U.S.

Economic stagnation in Europe “is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure,” the strategy document said.

The U.S. suggests that Europe is being enfeebled by its immigration policies, declining birthrates, “censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition” and a “loss of national identities and self-confidence.”

“Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less. As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies,” the document said. “Many of these nations are currently doubling down on their present path. We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence.”

Despite Trump’s “America First” maxim, his administration has carried out a series of military strikes on alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean while weighing possible military action in Venezuela to pressure President Nicolás Maduro.

The moves are part of what the national security strategy lays out as “a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.” The 1823 Monroe Doctrine, formulated by President James Monroe, was originally aimed at opposing any European meddling in the Western Hemisphere and was used to justify U.S. military interventions in Latin America.

Trump’s strategy document says the U.S. is reimagining its military footprint in the region even after building up the largest military presence there in generations.

That means, for instance, “targeted deployments to secure the border and defeat cartels, including where necessary the use of lethal force to replace the failed law enforcement-only strategy of the last several decades,” it says.

By OMAR ALBAM and ABBY SEWELL, Associated Press

DUMAYR, Syria (AP) — A raid by U.S. forces and a local Syrian group aiming to capture an Islamic State group official instead killed a man who had been working undercover gathering intelligence on the extremists, family members and Syrian officials have told The Associated Press.

The killing in October underscores the complex political and security landscape as the United States begins working with interim Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa in the fight against remnants of IS.

According to relatives, Khaled al-Masoud had been spying on IS for years on behalf of the insurgents led by al-Sharaa and then for al-Sharaa’s interim government, established after the fall of former President Bashar Assad a year ago. Al-Sharaa’s insurgents were mainly Islamists, some connected to al-Qaida, but enemies of IS who often clashed with it over the past decade.

This undated handout photo provided by the al-Masoud family shows Khaled al-Masoud, who was killed at his home during a raid in the town of al-Dumayr in the Damascus countryside. (Courtesy of the al-Masoud family via AP)

Neither U.S. nor Syrian government officials have commented on al-Masoud’s death, an indication that neither side wants the incident to derail improving ties. Weeks after the Oct. 19 raid, al-Sharaa visited Washington and announced Syria would join the global coalition against IS.

Still, al-Masoud’s death could be “quite a setback” for efforts to combat IS, said Wassim Nasr, a senior research fellow with the Soufan Center, a New York-based think tank focused on security issues.

Al-Masoud had been infiltrating IS in the southern deserts of Syria known as the Badiya, one of the places where remnants of the extremist group have remained active, Nasr said.

The raid targeting him was a result of “the lack of coordination between the coalition and Damascus,” Nasr said.

In the latest sign of the increasing cooperation, the U.S. Central Command said Sunday that American troops and forces from Syria’s Interior Ministry had located and destroyed 15 IS weapons caches in the south.

Confusion around the raid

The raid occurred in Dumayr, a town east of Damascus on the edge of the desert. At around 3 a.m., residents woke to the sound of heavy vehicles and planes.

Residents said U.S. troops conducted the raid alongside the Syrian Free Army, a U.S.-trained opposition faction that had fought against Assad. The SFA now officially reports to the Syrian Defense Ministry.

Al-Masoud’s cousin, Abdel Kareem Masoud, said he opened his door and saw Humvees with U.S. flags on them.

“There was someone on top of one of them who spoke broken Arabic, who pointed a machine gun at us and a green laser light and told us to go back inside,” he said.

Khaled al-Masoud’s mother, Sabah al-Sheikh al-Kilani, said the forces then surrounded her son’s house next door, where he was with his wife and five daughters, and banged on the door.

Sabah al-Sheikh al-Kilani, the mother of Khaled al-Masoud, points to bullet holes in the wall of her son’s home after he was killed during a raid in the town of al-Dumayr, in the Damascus countryside, Syria, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)

Al-Masoud told them that he was with General Security, a force under Syria’s Interior Ministry, but they broke down the door and shot him, al-Kilani said.

They took him away, wounded, al-Kilani said. Later, government security officials told the family he had been released but was in the hospital. The family was then called to pick up his body. It was unclear when he had died.

“How did he die? We don’t know,” his mother said. “I want the people who took him from his children to be held accountable.”

Faulty intelligence

Al-Masoud’s family believes he was targeted based on faulty intelligence provided by members of the Syrian Free Army.

Representatives of the SFA did not respond to requests for comment.

 

Al-Masoud had worked with al-Sharaa’s insurgent group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, in its northwestern enclave of Idlib before Assad’s fall, his cousin said. Then he returned to Dumayr and worked with the security services of al-Sharaa’s government.

Two Syrian security officials and one political official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, confirmed that al-Masoud had been working with Syria’s interim government in a security role. Two of the officials said he had worked on combating IS.

Initial media reports on the raid said it had captured an IS official. But U.S. Central Command, which typically issues statements when a U.S. operation kills or captures a member of the extremist group in Syria, made no announcement.

A U.S. defense official, when asked for more information about the raid and its target and whether it had been coordinated with Syria’s government, said, “We are aware of these reports but do not have any information to provide.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss a sensitive military operation.

Representatives of Syria’s defense and interior ministries, and of U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack, declined to comment.

Increased coordination could prevent mistakes

At its peak in 2015, IS controlled a swath of territory across Iraq and Syria half the size of the United Kingdom. It was notorious for its brutality against religious minorities as well as Muslims not adhering to the group’s extreme interpretation of Islam.

After years of fighting, the U.S.-led coalition broke the group’s last hold on territory in late 2019. Since then, U.S. troops in Syria have been working to ensure IS does not regain a foothold. The U.S. estimates IS still has about 2,500 members in Syria and Iraq. U.S. Central Command last month said the number of IS attacks there had fallen to 375 for the year so far, compared to 1,038 last year.

Fewer than 1,000 U.S. troops are believed to be operating in Syria, carrying out airstrikes and conducting raids against IS cells. They work mainly alongside the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast and the Syrian Free Army in the south.

Now the U.S. has another partner: the security forces of the new Syrian government.

Airwars, a London-based conflict monitor, has reported 52 incidents in which civilians were harmed or killed in coalition operations in Syria since 2020.

The group classified al-Masoud as a civilian.

Airwars director Emily Tripp said the group has seen “multiple instances of what the U.S. call ‘mistakes,’” including a 2023 case in which the U.S. military announced it had killed an al-Qaida leader in a drone strike. The target later turned out to be a civilian farmer.

It was unclear if the Oct. 19 raid went wrong due to faulty intelligence or if someone deliberately fed the coalition false information. Nasr said that in the past, feuding groups have sometimes used the coalition to settle scores.

“That’s the whole point of having a hotline with Damascus, in order to see who’s who on the ground,” he said.

By OMAR FARUK, Associated Press

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Somali migrant Mohamed Abdi Awale endured horrors on an ill-fated journey across Africa to seek a better life in the West — but he’s determined to try again one day, even aiming for the U.S. despite increasing restrictions.

Awale is one of 165 Somali migrants recently repatriated after being detained in Libya, where the International Organization for Migration says those caught on journeys to Europe face “unacceptable and inhumane conditions.”

Mohamed Abdi Awale, who says he was tortured by smugglers while trying to reach Europe, is helped by his mother at their home in Mogadishu, Somalia, Monday, Nov. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)

Awale undertook a more than 3,100-mile journey, leaving Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, to cross Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan and Sudan.

He was captured by smugglers near the Sudan-Libyan border and taken to the Sahara oasis town of Kufra, where captors filmed him being tortured in a bid to extract a ransom from his family.

“Torture became normal,” Awale said. “If you failed to pay, they beat you until you fainted. Some people lost their minds. Others didn’t survive.”

Unable to afford the ransom, his mother, Hawo Elmo Rage, turned to social media, pleading with Somalis at home and abroad to help her save her son.

“They told me to send the money or they would take his life,” Rage said. She ultimately raised $17,000, enough to free him.

Awale was released from Kufra and put in a car bound for the Mediterranean coast with other migrants. After their vehicle broke down, the group trekked for more than two weeks, facing starvation and dehydration.

“I thought we would die there,” Awale said.

Mohamed Abdi Awale, who says he was captured and tortured by smugglers while attempting to reach Europe, shows his mother wounds during an interview with The Associated Press in Mogadishu, Somalia, Monday, Nov. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)

The group was then detained outside of Tripoli, and Awale spent a month in prison in the coastal town of Sirte and another two months in detention in Tripoli before his repatriation to Somalia in November.

Awale became one of hundreds of thousands of Somalis that have fled the country in more than three decades of civil war, according to UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, which estimates that another 3.5 million people are displaced within Somalia itself.

While most Somali refugees live in neighboring countries like Kenya, according to UNHCR, many like Awale have been inspired to seek a future in the West. Awale said that he dreamed of moving to the U.S. since he was a child.

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“I want him to stay,” his mother said. “But I know he wishes for a better life. I pray God gives him a safe future— not the dangerous one he found.”

Changes to immigration policy this year under Trump administration changed the calculus of migrants like Awale. U.S. President Donald Trump banned travel to the U.S. by citizens of Somalia and 11 other countries in June — so Awale set his sights on Europe.

Awale remains hopeful that he will reach the U.S. one day, despite anti-Somali sentiment from the White House and a further tightening of immigration restrictions for Somalis.

The White House also announced this week that it was pausing all immigration applications for people from 19 countries, including Somalia.

“My dream was America, but I felt like Trump closed that door,” Awale said. “Maybe after Trump’s term ends.”

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