Obama's Played 24 Rounds Of Golf In Office
10/27/2009
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You hear all the time about Obama playing basketball, but he's also enjoyed a sizable amount of time indulging in a less cool sport. From Mark Knoller of CBS's Twitter:
  • And by my count it's Obama's 24th round of golf since taking office. Today he's at Ft. Belvoir in Va.
  • Today - Obama ties Pres. Bush in the number of rounds of golf played in office: 24. Took Bush 2 yrs & 10 months.

(Bush decided to give up playing golf in 2003 as a symbolic sacrifice for being a wartime President.)

 

I've managed to squeeze in two rounds of golf so far this year, but I guess the President has more time on his hands.

 

This is by no means a record for a President. Bill Clinton's goal for his last year in office was to break Dwight Eisenhower's Presidential record of a little over 100 rounds in a year in his final year. But since a round of golf and all the ancillary activities takes about six hours, this seems like rather a lot for a first year President.

 

From Don Van Natta Jr.'s February 2009 article in Golf Digest:

For Obama, golf was appealing because he believed the game would help him connect with his colleagues in the state Senate as well as his constituents in far-flung places like downstate Illinois. Much to his surprise, he soon fell hard for the game's charms. Friends say he became as devoted to golf as he is to his beloved basketball. "Basketball and golf are his one-two," Marvin Nicholson says. "Now, he wants to play all the best courses: St. Andrews, Pebble Beach, Bethpage Black.

 

"He usually shoots in the mid-90s, sometimes the low 90s," Nicholson says. "He'd be better if he could play more. . . . He's pretty long off the tee . . . very good around the greens, a real good short game. The clubs that give him the most trouble are his long irons . . . or he'd shoot around 90 pretty consistently."
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