Obama tries to build bridges on course
This afternoon’s clash of the titans will be elsewhere along the Beltway, at Andrews Air Force Base, where President Barack Obama will tee it up against political rival Congressman John Boehner, the Republican party’s Speaker of the House.
At loggerheads since Obama won his landmark election in November 2008, the president thinks he has found a way to soften the political divide and broker a new understanding between Democrats and Repbulicans, by playing them at golf.
Estimates suggest that Obama has managed to squeeze in more than 70 rounds during his presidency, slipping out to Andrews on any free Saturday between reforming his country’s healthcare system and offing Osama Bin Laden.
His handicap is reputed to be 17 but much like the authenticity of his birth certificate, opponents shamelessly dispute this and there are suggestions he is playing off 24.
Either way, Boehner appears to be the better golfer, playing off eight and of his match with the president he said: “I’m sure I’ll have to give him some strokes.”
Politicians, of course, are renowned for pulling strokes, but presidents of all parties have been playing golf in the White House since William Howard Taft started the trend in 1909, chipping golf balls on the front lawn to the disgust of his opponents.
In all, Peter Landau, author of Presidential Lies reckons 16 of the past 19 commanders in chief have played golf whilst holding the office, the exceptions being Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter. All, he points out, were one-term presidents.
When the rotund Taft brought golf through the gates of the White House, the game was not the popular phenomenon it is today and was not widely played in America. Yet holding the highest office in the land produces unique stresses and whereas company CEOs are renowned for getting deals done on the golf course, those 16 presidents found the tees and greens of Washington DC to be an ideal place to unwind.
Yet many presidents have been sensitive to the public’s perception of their chosen leisure activity.
George W Bush even went as far as to take a break from the game in 2003 as he took the War on Terror into Iraq, explaining: “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signals.”
US presidents, being used to the power and privilege their office suggests, are not above pulling rank and bending the rules, as this old story of Dwight Eisenhower published in Golf Digest magazine in 1993 displays.
Ike was playing his regular round at Bending Tree, just outside Washington DC where he was infamous for rolling his club over his ball as a means to identify it. No-one complained if the president improved his lie in the process but Eisenhower surprised himself when his manipulated his ball up against a rock by mistake.
“What happened?” he asked his caddie. Mr President,” the caddie replied, “I’m afraid you’ve over-identified your ball.”
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