President Barack Obama just lost another supporter: my wife. “That’s a bit much,” she said, when she read that he had played golf eight times in eleven days, on Martha’s Vineyard. “It shows indifference.”
I beg to differ: playing that many rounds demonstrates anything but indifference. It indicates that the First Hacker, who earlier in his Presidency was frequently described as an occasional player, is now a fully fledged golf nut, or, as close to one that it makes no difference. Mr. President, welcome to the club.
Despite what you may have read in the Times and elsewhere, it’s a club with a perfectly respectable membership, which includes all three of his immediate predecessors. George H.W. Bush was a keen recreational golfer. So were Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. (The latter has said that he gave up the game during the Iraq War, when he was criticized for playing, though it’s not clear how long his abstention lasted.)
Earlier Presidents took the game even more seriously. John F. Kennedy was an accomplished ball-striker who sometimes shot in the high seventies, although he didn’t advertise this to the press. Dwight Eisenhower was a fanatical golfer. According to Evan Thomas, the author of “Ike’s Bluff,” the general “loosened up every morning in the White House with an eight iron, hit balls on the White House lawn every day at 5 p.m,” and played more than eight hundred rounds as President. He even had a tree named after him at Augusta National, the home of the Masters.
From what we know, President Obama’s devotion to the game doesn’t rise to that level. But who can be sure? If the members of the White House press corps somehow got access to the luxury property the Obamas are renting on the Vineyard, we’d doubtless see the President interacting with his family and getting briefed by his advisers, including some of the military men who are overseeing the American bombing campaign in Iraq. In addition, though, I suspect that the reporters would see the President watching the Golf Channel, reading Golf Digest, and pottering out to the garage to practice his swing.
Fortunately, it’s perfectly possible to be a fully functional golfaholic. (If it weren’t, the Fortune 500 and the Business Round Table would no longer exist.) Escaping to the links occasionally might help to keep a President sane. In some ways, though, golf addiction is much like drug addiction. It’s anti-social, inexplicable to outsiders, and incredibly time-consuming. (It’s also associated with socioeconomic privilege, but let’s not get into that here.)
The game itself takes about five hours, including a bit of time for warmup, but that’s only the start of it. A couple of days away from the course, and you start to get a nagging urge. You can always seek out a floor-length mirror, adopt your address position, and check your takeaway. But that’s a bit like a junkie having a drink or a cigarette. It only increases your appetite for the real thing. Before you know it, you are sneaking out of work early, or abandoning a family dinner, and heading for the first tee.
When I was serious about the game, a few years back, I played three or four times a week, which is what the President has been doing on the Vineyard. These days, I’ve cut it down to once, or, occasionally, twice, a week, which qualifies me as a recreational player rather than an addict. Even on vacation, I try to keep it under control. Like the President, I’m currently enjoying a family retreat on the coast of Massachusetts. (I’m on the Cape, not the islands.) But—and, at this point, I apologize to all serious golfers—I’ve only managed a couple of nine-hole getaways to the Highland Links.
Some friends of mine still keep a proper golf schedule. They play twice on weekends and at least once during the week. And that doesn’t include practice sessions, which no dedicated player overlooks. I know a fellow with a highly successful professional career who spends many of his lunch hours hitting balls at Brooks Brothers on Madison Avenue, which recently installed a golf-instruction bay on the top floor. It’s not the real thing, he says. But there’s a teaching professional on hand who dispenses useful tips. My friend insists that the lunchtime sessions have helped bring his handicap down, from eight to six.
As President, Obama doesn’t have the option of slipping out of his office, or his vacation home, without his absence being noted. For appearances’ sake, he clearly should have postponed the round he played on Wednesday, when he headed for the Vineyard Golf Club shortly after he expressed horror at the execution of James Foley, the American journalist who was kidnapped in Syria. That was a gift to his critics, who were already busy harping on the age-old theme of golfing while the world burns. Once the Washington media gets in high dudgeon over something like this, there’s no point trying to reason with it.
So, by all means, go ahead and join in the attacks on Obama: on this occasion, he brought the criticism upon himself. But remember a couple of things. The man is entitled to a vacation. And he’s obviously got a serious golf problem.