March 8, 2008

Obama's golf club?

Reportedly, Barack Obama took up golf and poker when he got elected to the Illinois legislature in 1996 to better bond with his fellow boys in the back room. My vague impression from references here and there is that he plays golf a fair amount, but it doesn't fit his image, so we don't hear much about it.

Does anybody know which, if any, golf club he joined? My guess would be that somebody starting in the mid-1990s would mostly play country-club-for-a-day courses open to the paying public, but it would be interesting to know if he joined a private club, and which one. Country clubs in the Chicago area were largely segregated up through the 1990 Shoal Creek scandal, so, as a Chicago public course player, I met a lot of affluent black golfers on the public links.

Once the Democratic race is over and the general election starts, Obama will have to stop being the Stuff White People Like candidate and start being the Stuff American Men Like candidate. So, expect to see photo ops of Obama pulling up at the golf club bag drop in his 340 horsepower V8 American-made Chrysler 300 land yacht.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

One thing I like about Obama is that he enjoys playing basketball - a real sport - rather than just "cartball" (aka golf played with the electric cart).

Anonymous said...

Waydaminit. As a part-white black man, why doesn't playing gold not fit the image? Both Tiger and Bill (the latter being America's first black President) fit the bill.

Plus Obama is a chain smoker so don't expect him to play the hoops for a long time.

Anonymous said...

I doubt Obama would move to the center, be the candidate of stuff American men like. He can't. His whole personality is based on being "Black enough" and well, being "Leon" from those beer commercials.

It's not as if Barack Hussein Obama has ever won an election against a white candidate for the vast middle of the mostly white electorate. No beating Alan Keyes does not count.

Moreover, if he wins the nomination it's likely through a series of hard-left panders, and a series of convention riots and freaks and black nationalists. Sharpton's already got his threats and camera time lined up. So it's likely August in Denver will create a Barack Hussein Obama as the Sharpton-Farrakhan candidate.

Anonymous said...

Cartball-mania has basically killed off all participatory sports opportunities for men over age 30. It has just about zero exercise value.

Anonymous said...

I doubt Obama has had to worry about course rules or club memberships since he graduated Harvard Law.

As a politican, I'm sure backers, lobbyist, business big wigs and various other movers, shakers and favor seekers carry the exclusive memberships and pay the green fees to bend Obama's ear.

Anonymous said...

Maybe child care duties got in the way. A fair number of people pretty much drop golf when their kids are young, then pick it up again when their kids are a little older.

Anonymous said...

"play the hoops": you mean he plays croquet? Well I never. Anyway, the Big golf Question is simple: does he cheat? It's the fact that Mr Clinton cheats at golf that gives you all the insight you need into his character.

Anonymous said...

I think I figured out why Obama's pastor wants to sabotage him.

If an African-American (*) can win the presidency, then there is no need for his pastor's church, is there :-)

(*) Of course, Obama is not really African American. He is the son of a Kenyan man and a white American woman. I know that lots of Kenyans and people of Kenyan descent in the US look down on African-Americans and their sense of entitlement.

Anonymous said...

Of topic but what the heck,

It seems to me that this presidential election and the preceding oh, 5 constitute strong evidence for H & M's primary thesis in Bell Curve. Just about every top candidate has some kind of ivy league taint to them, (okay, not McCain, he has Annapolis taint). Now do some wiki'ing on past presidents. LBJ went to Texas Southwest Teachers college or some such, Truman didn't have a degree (studied law at U of Kansas but dropped out), Silent Cal went to Amhert (close to Ivy but not really). Harding went to Ohio Central. There were obviously some Ivy tainted presidents before (FDR, JFK) but there were plenty of non-Ivy. Seems M&H were right, us is becoming less egalitarian as the 'meritocracy' gets more efficient.

Anonymous said...

I doubt Obama would move to the center, be the candidate of stuff American men like. He can't.

He has to, if he wants to win. A smart man like Obama knows that. It will be no more difficult - or, at least, not much more difficult - for him to appear to be a centrist than for HRC to do the same. Both are liberals, and both have pasts laden with material that can be used by Republican operatives to make them look like a race-baiter or a humorless, old-school feminist, respectively.

Indeed, that last point is a key advantage BHO offers over HRC: There are plenty of men who pay lip service, especially in the presence of their wives or female co-workers, to feminism but who in fact dislike feminist activists; Clinton is the feminist-hater's worst nightmare. (I think it was Tucker Carlson who said that, every time he saw Hillary, he wanted to cross his legs.)

In other words, when calculating the relative advantages of HRC and BHO vs. McCain in the general election, the great unknowables are how many whites would reject Obama because of race and how many men would reject Clinton not because of sex, per se - although some would reject her on that point alone - but because of her history as a feminist.

Are there any meta-analyses showing how well Obama has done among men across all primaries to date? If he's beating Clinton even among presumably more "enlightened" Democratic males, then he's likely to wallop her among among testiculated voters in the general election.

Anonymous said...

Makes me think of Michael Jordan,living up in Highland Park on the North Shore,tried to join a Jewish club up here and they said "Nicht git!" They will shower his behind with kissess but wont let him join the club! he was prety mad,but as they were a jewish club,I gues the media wouldnt talk about it.I am sure the jews are the first to scream if a black guy wants to join a white(goyim) club,but theyre not letting "schvartses" into their own clubs--even Michael! Just as we have the Jordan Rules,we have the Juden Rules. Now if Obama came a calling that would be highly amusing.But a word from his fundraisers and no doubt Barry would find other places to play! Oh yeah,Barry;I dont see him as a good golfer,but maybe he is. -Josh?

Bob said...

Of course, Obama is not really African American.

... Unless "African-American" referred to someone who was half African and half American. But that would be silly.

Anonymous said...

Re: Josh's post: Is there any evidence this is true, or is it just hearsay? (Link, please.) Although I'm not surprised Jordan wouldn't get into a Jewish club, since he's not Jewish.

poc8284 said...

Re anonymous... I grew up on the North Shore of Chicago and also heard murmurs that Jordan was denied membership to a club.

After searching the topic I found this NY Times Article which Jordan states that he has never been denied membership and that he has never applied to any Jewish Clubs... I don't know who to believe.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html
?res=9C0CE7D6143EF936A3575BC0A966958260