Obama’s bandaged fingers don’t suggest a role in his chef’s death. It’s golf tape for blisters
FILE - President Barack Obama plays golf with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, right, Dec. 24, 2014, on the Marine Corps Base Hawaii’s Kaneohe Klipper Golf Course in Kaneohe, Hawaii during the Obama family vacation. The Associated Press on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023 reported on social media posts falsely claiming that bandages on Obama’s fingers on Friday are suspicious and suggest he was involved in the death of his personal chef last month. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, file)
CLAIM: Bandages around former President Barack Obama’s hand on Friday are suspicious and suggest he was involved in the death of his personal chef last month.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. An Obama spokesperson said the Democrat was wearing golfer’s tape on his left hand, as photos have shown him doing many times over the years. Golfing experts confirmed the former president is wearing the tape properly and that golfers routinely use it to avoid blisters and split calluses.
THE FACTS: Images of Obama golfing on Martha’s Vineyard have sparked a fresh round of conspiracies around the drowning of Tafari Campbell in the waters by the former president’s summer home on the Massachusetts island.
The pictures, which were originally published by The Daily Mail on Friday, show Obama as he hit the links at the Vineyard Golf Club that day, clad in a polo shirt with white shorts, hat and sneakers.
He also has a white glove on his right hand but his left one is gloveless, revealing bandages on two of his fingers.
“This is the very first picture taken of Barack Hussein Obama just days after his personal chef, Tafari Campbell, mysteriously died in 3 feet of water at Obama’s home in Martha’s Vineyard,” reads one Instagram post that shared the images. “Cuts on his hands. As if he got into a fight. VERY odd.”
But there’s nothing suspicious about the small beige wraps, which were on his middle and ring fingers.
Obama, an avid golfer, has been photographed numerous times over the years wearing similar finger coverings while out on the fairway, particularly during his family’s summer getaways to Martha’s Vineyard.
A search of The Associated Press’ online archive turned up AP photos from August 2015, in which the president wrapped his left middle finger in two bandages as he golfed at Farm Neck Golf Club in Oak Bluffs.
He returned to Farm Neck Golf Club later that month and was also photographed wearing finger wraps, but this time they were not just on his middle finger but also on his ring finger.
Going back further, the AP photographed Obama in 2014 at the Farm Neck Golf Club with a single bandage on his left middle finger, and in 2010 he was seen wearing a similar bandage while playing golf at Vineyard Golf Club in Edgartown.
Eric Schultz, an Obama spokesperson, confirmed Tuesday that the bandages are actually golfer’s tape and that using them has been “standard practice for him for many years.”
The tape helps golfers prevent painful blisters or split calluses, explained Brad Woodger, owner of the Royal and Ancient Chappaquiddick Links, another golf course on Martha’s Vineyard.
The placement of Obama’s wraps — one above the knuckle of his middle finger, another below the knuckle and a third above the knuckle on his ring finger — is also fairly typical, he added.
“The friction and movement of the club can cause blisters in certain contact spots on the hand (I tend to get them on between my thumb and forefinger),” Woodger wrote in an email. “Once the blister forms, it makes the swinging motion difficult (even with a bandage on it).”
Steve Eisenberg, a PGA-certified golf pro and president of Golf Concepts Consulting in Fort Myers, Florida, concurred, adding that blisters tend to develop if a person is playing for long stretches or hasn’t played in a while.
He also noted that Obama is a left-handed golfer, which explains why the former president opted to use tape on that hand while his right hand, which is considered his “lead hand,” was gloved.
“It really boils down to ‘feel’,” Eisenberg wrote in an email. “Having a glove on prevents blisters, and does help with grip stability. But, it reduces sensitivity of your hand attached to the club. Therefore, having a glove on the lead hand, and no glove on the other hand provides a balance between protection, grip, stability, and ‘feel’ of the hand, without a glove, on the club.”
Campbell drowned July 23 after falling off his paddleboard on Edgartown Great Pond, near where the Obama’s waterfront estate is located.
The 45-year-old former White House sous chef’s body was recovered the following day. Massachusetts authorities have said that the death wasn’t suspicious.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
