President Obama has already played more than 60 rounds of golf since he entered office in 2009. Over the weekend, he and House Speaker John Boehner teed off together in a buzzed-about game seen as an effort to strengthen their sometimes contentious relationship. There was much speculation that the two would take advantage of the game to discuss the debt ceiling in a less formal setting. But they seemed chummy and relaxed in their casual golf attire during Saturday’s game. Boehner had previously quipped about their difference of opinion in reference to the much-anticipated match, joking that each stroke would cost the president a trillion dollars. After Boehner sunk a long putt on the first hole, the president engaged the crowd: “Did you all catch that?” He smiled before turning around and patting his partner on the back. Naturally, the president took the wheel of the golf cart to drive them to the next hole.
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Though he didn’t exactly have an athletic figure, William Howard Taft, the 27th president of the United States (1909-1913), was one of the first presidents to take up golf. He adored the sport, playing at least twice a week during the season, but his game was nothing to write home about. Dick Stranahan, former curator of the Professional Golf Associaton Hall of Fame, claimed that Taft once took 12 strokes to get his ball out of a sand trap. Although his brown-nosing partners often suggested he discount a few strokes here and there, Taft “insisted on including each and every stroke in his score for the hole,” said Stranahan. Cheating would never have sat well with the president’s view of the game as a sport that “affords the chance to play the man and act the gentleman.”
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As Woodrow Wilson tried to lead the United States through World War I, the 28th president is said to have found solitude and peace in the game and played daily. Weather conditions were no matter to Wilson, who even played in the snow, using black balls instead of white ones . His golfing attire was fairly traditional: white sport shirt and a wool cap.
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Woodrow Wilson’s successor was an avid golfer in his youth, often visiting Florida and keeping cool on the green in a classic straw bowler hat. Harding’s health began to deteriorate toward the end of his presidency, however, which made playing more difficult. During a visit to Cocoa Beach in March 1923, he complained to an aide about feeling tired on the course. But when the aide suggested he play fewer holes in the next round, Harding stubbornly responded, “Hell, if I can’t play 18 holes, I won’t play at all.”
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Elected president in 1952, Eisenhower ushered in a new era for the nation and the game of golf. After winning the election, Eisenhower took a vacation in Augusta, Georgia, where he fell in love with the now historic Augusta National golf course. He befriended some of the great golfing legends of his time, including Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer. Eisenhower played some 800 rounds of golf during his two terms in office and visited Augusta 29 times, but he never made it to the Masters. He preferred to keep a low profile and would instead visit on the Monday after the tournament to play with the champions. Eisenhower was one of the first presidents to bring political issues onto the green and often invited members of Congress out for a round at Burning Tree and Cherry Hills club near the nation’s capital. He once told The Washington Post, “Those who golf or visit with the president in Augusta or at Burning Tree Club in Washington can vitally influence national policy.” Eisenhower didn’t always wear the most practical golfing attire: During one round with Palmer, he sported a military-style belt with metal buckles that got in the way of his swing. “Bless him, like the good soldier he was, in his determination to keep that right wing tucked as ordered, he’d actually rubbed the skin off his arm and was bleeding,” said Palmer, who had given the president some tips on his stroke. When I pointed it out to him, he acted as if it were nothing but a scratch...”
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Given that the Democratic Party gave Eisenhower, Kennedy’s Republican predecessor, quite a bit of flak for putting more time into his golf game than in state affairs, Kennedy was hesitant to get out on the green as president. Shortly before the 1960 election, a near hole-in-one sent JFK into a panic. “If that ball had gone into that hole,” Kennedy said to his partner, “in less than an hour the word would be out to the nation that another golfer was trying to get into the White House.” Once elected, he was a bit more relaxed about playing on occasion, and he is still known to have the best golf game of any U.S. president. With his quintessentially New England style, JFK certainly looked the part.
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Prior to Watergate, Nixon loved to get out on the fairway to work on his backswing. The president wasn’t exactly a natural, but he desperately wanted to be good at the game. According to Arnold Palmer, with whom Nixon occasionally played, the president was somewhat of an oddball. “I liked Richard Nixon despite his quirks and apparent lack of warmth,” said Palmer. A few duffs and penalties in the Oval Office may have been the reason why he ultimately quit the game. “I think his decision to abandon golf for political purposes revealed something fundamental about the dark side of his character, or maybe his deep social insecurities, that Mr. Nixon never permitted himself to examine,” Palmer remarked. Nixon was so fond of Palmer that he once asked for his advice on war strategy in Vietnam.
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Gerald Ford took on the challenge of the presidency “under extraordinary circumstances,” as he put it when taking his oath of office in 1974, after Richard Nixon was forced to resign. Ford was respected as president for instilling calm after a storm and putting his efforts into rebuilding a country in shambles. His stance on the golf course was equally steady and focused. “No president ever tried harder at the game than Gerald Ford,” wrote Arnold Palmer in his biography. Ford always played fair, unlike other presidents with which Palmer hit the links. “One indication of his passion is that if you tried to give him a putt, he would never take it but insist on trying to make it.” His uniform was a lucky polo shirt with an above-the-breast inscription that read, “Mr. President—Bogie Buster.”
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Reagan was an avid golfer before and after he entered office, but he generally avoided the links during his presidency, except for an annual New Years’ round in California. Perhaps he sensed the potential for foul play? Once, when the president played at Augusta National, a gunman held people hostage in the clubhouse while Reagan was on the fairway.
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Though he generally maintained his poker face throughout his presidency, George Herbert Walker Bush was known to let loose on the golf course. He was famous for spouting eccentric expressions on the fairway, such as, “Oh, golly darn, get up there.” Whenever his ball fell short of the hole, G.H.W. was known to cry out, “Power outage!” His aides referred to his golf game as “aerobic golf,” and the president himself called it “cart polo,” preferring to race through his rounds rather than take his time. Bush liked his partners to be speedy as well (he set a presidential record when he finished 18 holes in under two hours as a foursome). To this day, the former president frequently visits the Gasparilla Inn and Golf Course in Boca Grande, Florida, with his wife, Barbara, and grandchildren. But at the ripe old age of 87, these days he can only go as fast as his golf cart will take him.
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Clinton hit the links often during his presidency and never worried about critics saying he should have been spending that time behind his desk. Like G.H.W.B., Wild Bill was a loose cannon on the green, often providing amusing running commentary throughout his matches. During his first year in office, he watched his ball soar after hitting a tee shot in Martha’s Vineyard and exclaimed loudly, “Whoa, mama, stay up!” Clinton occasionally broke the rules on the green, often dropping a substituted ball when his shots hooked in the wrong direction. His knack for taking a mulligan—golf lexicon for a penalty-free do-over—caused some pros to nickname the term a “Clinton.”
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Like his father, G.W. Bush was an avid golfer, but the game soured for him while he was in office. When a round was interrupted with the news that the United Nations’ Sergio Vieira de Mello had been killed in Baghdad during the Iraq War, the president decided to temporarily give up the game. “I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal,” he said in an interview, adding, “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf.” Some veterans were offended by his statement and felt they had sacrificed a lot more than golf for war. Now that his presidential duties are no longer an issue, Bush has taken up the sport again, playing with his family last December at Florida’s Gasparailla Inn & Club golf course.
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