President Trump says this RBC Heritage winner inspired his voter fraud investigation

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump announced plans for an investigation into widespread voter fraud, claiming millions of illegal votes were cast during the most recent election.

Multiple media outlets around the world have tied the start of the investigation back to one man -- golfing legend Bernhard Langer.

Trump claimed Monday during a bipartisan White House reception that he would have won the popular vote against Hillary Clinton had 3 million to 5 million illegal ballots not been counted for the Democrat. When pressed for further comment, Trump shared a story told to him by Langer, who he called a friend.

Langer, a two-time Masters winner and current fixture on the PGA’s Champions Tour, won the Heritage tournament (then called the Sea Pines Heritage) on Hilton Head in 1985.

In Trump’s story, he said Langer was told he could not vote in the election and had people ahead and behind him in line to vote in Florida that “did not look as if they should be allowed to vote” but were given provisional ballots.

But Langer is not a U.S. citizen and thus cannot vote in U.S. elections. While a permanent resident of the United States, he is a citizen of Germany.

When reached by the New York Times, Langer’s daughter reportedly said, “He is not a friend of President Trump’s, and I don’t know why he would talk about him.”

This story was originally published January 26, 2017 at 12:23 PM with the headline "President Trump says this RBC Heritage winner inspired his voter fraud investigation."