President Obama playing golf
President John F. Kennedy tried to keep his passion for the game secret for political reasons as golf was so identified with his predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower. President Gerald Ford loved the game but his skills were such that he had a penchant for hitting spectators and so it was harder for the Secret Service to keep his outings a secret. As he said about himself when he was in office, “I know I am getting better at golf because I am hitting fewer spectators.”
More recent Presidents have all played the game with George H. W. Bush inventing a form of speed golf that enabled him to play 18 holes in less than two and half hours. As for President Clinton he seemingly favoured the use of Mulligans when he played, so much so, that they were renamed “Billigans” as he replayed the shots that were not to his liking
For the second Bush Presidency, George W Bush, the love of the sport got him into some trouble when in 2008 he gave up golf to show solidarity with soldiers serving in Iraq after a round was interrupted with the news that Sergio Vieira de Mello, the United Nations official, had been killed in Baghdad. After that moment he decided he should not play golf again while in office.
"I remember when de Mello, who was at the UN, got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life," Mr Bush said. "And I was playing golf, I think I was in central Texas, and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, it's just not worth it anymore to do. I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal,"
"I don't want some mum whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them."
But at the time Brandon Friedman, a veteran US infantry officer who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, said Mr Bush's claim that his sacrificing of golf for the war, was a "slap in the face" for US troops.
Dwight David Eisenhower was the perhaps the most famous during his presidency from 1953-61 as when he was sworn into office there three million Americans were golfers and by the end of his term the number had doubled to more than six million Americans. Many had seen the president play so often that his impact on the game is still acknowledged today.
Indeed, the supreme commander of the Allies in World War II, the architect of D-Day, and two-term president of the United States, has since been elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame and became the fourth member in the Class of 2009, joining Lanny Wadkins, Jose Maria Olazabal and Ireland’s, Christy O'Connor Sr
Eisenhower had a putting green installed on the White House lawn and was a member of Augusta National Golf Club where he played many times. According to a Golf Digest article from 2008, Eisenhower played golf more than 800 times during his presidency which is surprising given that his presidency was not a peaceful time in America or the world at large: The Civil Rights movement and Southern desegregation battles were under way; Castro came to power in Cuba; the French pulled out of Indochina in defeat and America began stepping up its own involvement in Vietnam and the Cold War.
Despite that Eisenhower managed to spend more than 1,000 days of his presidency (according to Golf Digest) playing golf.
For Arnold Palmer the impact of Eisenhower on golf was substantial: "One would be hard-pressed to find any single person who did more to popularise the game of golf, not only in the United States but throughout the world, than President Eisenhower. His visibility, coupled with his passion for the game, were the inspiration for literally millions of people picking up the game for the first time. Those involved in golf today owe him a great debt of gratitude."
Bill Clinton claims his reputation for awarding himself free shots on the golf course is greatly exaggerated and that he doesn't do it all that much as there is not a lot of benefit.
``You'd be surprised at how many times you don't get a bit of good out of it,'' Clinton said, ``I normally don't (take them),'' he said. ``I let everyone have one off the first tee, and then normally what I do when I'm playing with people is, I just play around and if somebody makes a terrible shot I say, 'Well, take that one,' and then I give everybody else one.''
At a time when he was the most powerful man in the world, it proved impossible to really get away for a private round as on a typical outing he would be accompanied by more than a half-dozen golf carts carrying Secret Service agents, a police sniper, a photographer, a man carrying U.S. nuclear codes, various aides and someone with a secure telephone so the president could speak to world leaders between strokes.
Clinton claimed that during his presidency Americans didn’t begrudge his time spent on the golf course and he regularly played five times a month during the summer and about three times a month the rest of the year. He also had a practice tee at the White House where he worked on his short game.
His love for the game is best summed up in his own words:
``Golf is like life in a lot of ways: The most important competition is the one against yourself, All the biggest wounds are self-inflicted. And you get a lot of breaks you don't deserve, both ways. So it's important not to get too upset when you're having a bad day.''
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