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:
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."My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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34 comments:
as long as the great one is happy...
To paraphrase Russell Kirk, "Obama's not a Marxist, he's a golfer."
I wish he would play more golf. That would reduce the amount of time he has to damage the country.
The more golf he plays, the less time he can devote to social engineering. So Barack Hussein can golf every day of the week for all I care.
Speaking of which,
I really enjoyed golf when I played it; the skill set reminds me of target shooting. Finally got to where I understood the truly fascinating biomechanics and could just 'grip it and rip it' off the tee. But maintaining that level means one round a week and at least one day a week at the driving range, and you also ought to hit about fifteen minutes a day into a practice net in your back yard, followed by the same time chipping and putting.
That's the minimum if you want to be a golfer who is proficient enough to concentrate on the game and let his swing take care of itself while he savors the course layout. Anybody in the business who says otherwise is lying through their teeth to try and prop up their dying industry.
The only people I've ever seen able to devote that kind of time and money to golf are investor-class business owners (i.e., no longer much engaged in day-to-day ops), retirees, trust fund babies, and salesmen in certain industries (less every year, as salespeople are increasingly customer service/project management as well).
"Bitmap said...
I wish he would play more golf. That would reduce the amount of time he has to damage the country."
Seconded. President's should be encouraged to spend most of their time golfing. Congressmen too (better golfing than legislating).
Last President we had who didn't golf?
Jimmy Carter.
I guess you do not need to think long and hard to institute the kind of moronic and destructive policies which Clinton and Obama have embarked on.
You want to comment on his all-guys sport outings that pissed off NOW?
Gender stuff is not your forte, I know, but you seem interesting in sport stuff in general, and how it relates to society.
"You want to comment on his all-guys sport outings that pissed off NOW?"
Obama more or less holds feminists in contempt for claiming to be victims. He's the real victim!
Next you'll be telling us he does frisbee golf.
"a round of golf and all the ancillary activities takes about six hours": no wonder people complain about Yanks playing slowly.
And: 90s? Bloody 90s? I could probably go round in 90s and I haven't played since I left school.
Like a lot of black athletes, Obama is by temperament and inclination pretty conservative. Which is why the freak outs on the Right about "Socialism' and "social engineering" are pretty funny. Obama is a lot more like Clinton than he is like Carter. No real leftist plays golf. Obama is doing everything he can to ingratiate himself with the Wall Street elite ruling class - he sees that as the rightful place for himself and his family. This is the sad part for left-wingers - Obama thinks our current system is just fine as long as a piece is carved out for some elite black families. He may do some damage to the economy on his way to his goal, but it will be nothing we haven't seen before and far less lethal that what Johnson/Nixon tried to pull off.
I played frisbee golf in 1976 at the course just south of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Now, all the JPL frisbee golfers have special rectangular bags to carry their multiple frisbees.
Peter -
Right on. Obama has kept the same Goldman Sachs power brokers in charge of the economy, mostly because he doesn't really care about it. (I mean, really - can you imagine this loser giving FDR's "I welcome their hatred" speech?) That's why the whole Gates episode was so revealing - it showed that race issues are the only thing that really gets him exercised. As long as GS hires a few tokens and contributed to the NAACP, they can rape the rest of the country as much as they want, as far as he's concerned.
The only good thing about this is watching the feminists squirm. Since, in the calculus of victimhood, black > women, he doesn't really have to do anything to appease them.
(BTW, Micheal Vick learned, to his sorrow, that animals > Black...)
90? He's no Kim.
When are we going to get a foosball playing prsident?
Like a lot of black athletes, Obama is by temperament and inclination pretty conservative. Which is why the freak outs on the Right about "Socialism' and "social engineering" are pretty funny
Now that's funny.
First, that Obama is a "black athlete". Second, that he's actually pretty conservative.
Here's a stimulus plan I can support - free golf passes on all American courses for the Prez, VP, congresscritters and federal bureaucrats. The savings would be phenomenal! The more time spent playing golf, the less damage they can do.
-Black Death
I always wonder, when we hear the scores of public figures like this, are they really counting every stroke by the book, or are there mulligans and extra drops in there? I played pretty steadily for a year and never broke 100, and that was from the amateur tees. But I counted everything just like the USGA booklet said, like I was playing in a real tournament. The article makes it sound like he just started playing golf, so unless he's also putting in hours of training with a pro, mid-90s seems very good.
But like others have said, the more time he spends playing and not governing, the better.
Nero fiddled, but Barry only shanked.
(Apologies to Mencken's ghost)
"Leftists don't play golf." Heh.
True.
Now if Obama starts to play squash, we'll have him nailed as an elitist.
Like a lot of black athletes, Obama is by temperament and inclination pretty conservative. Which is why the freak outs on the Right about "Socialism' and "social engineering" are pretty funny.
Yes, exactly! Denouncing Obama or black activists in general for advocating "Socialism" is absolutely hilarious.
The "Socialism" we're talking about is the same sort of "Socialism" established by Robert Mugabe or Idi Amin. Personally, I really spend many sleepless nights worrying about the "Socialist" threat to America's future...
Didn't you say in your book on Obama that he was attracted to basketball because it was in his mind a "black" sport? Certainly golf is white. So as Obama is a half black - half white guy, it shouldn't be surprising for him to pursue both golf and basketball.
Or is he like Dr. Strangelove with one side of himself at war with the other? My fuhrer I can walk!
The prevarication at the heart of his policies obviously affects the assessment of his golf game. First, no one uses "long irons" anymore, and even if they weren't passe, being "long off the tee" is precisely what frees you from having to use them. Finally, being good around the greens usually means shooting 82. It only comes with long experience.
Please -- Obama is about as conservative as Huey Long. Like Long, he believes that naturally the money and power should all be redistributed (spread the wealth around as he said) to ... worthy people. Blacks. Like him.
Anything else would be ... racist!
Austin was offered stimulus funds to build more disc golf (more PC term) courses! http://www.theneweditor.com/index.php?/archives/9122-Environmentally-and-Financially-Sustainable-Frisbee-Golf-Course-for-Austin-in-Stimulus-Package-Wish-List.html
I don't know if it ever really happened.
It seems mostly a hippy thing here; cutoff jeans and well worn T-shirts are the most formal attire one sees. There are fanatics out there, though, with bags as you describe holding 6 or more discs (who knew that discs had such different flight properties).
I also notice that many women play, and I wonder why. The women golfers I knew (when I used to play) liked the formality and neatness of the game and clubhouse. They all dressed well. Many of them also had some male-type competitiveness. None of this seems very relevant to disc golf.
Just like Nero but substitute Golf club for the Lyre.
FOOSBALL?!?!?! The only thing quantifiably gheyer in the *entire universe* than Perez Hilton.
"If I had my way, no man guilty of golf would be eligible to any office of trust under the United States." -- H.L. Mencken
He's no Kim Jong Il.
"Obama more or less holds feminists in contempt for claiming to be victims. He's the real victim!"
That's my opinion of the guys over at Roissy. In the past that kind of whining wasn't tolerated among men, but black men made it acceptable. Sure divorce laws are unfair and this feminized society is hard to live in. But the guys over there who excoriate blacks and women for open and obvious self pity aren't angry about the loss of traditional strength; they're mad because no one indulges them personally to emotionally expound on their problems. Which is unfair but why do young men WANT to weep and sniffle over the problems instead of solving them?
Didn't Obama go play golf with a woman in the last week?
I guess he heard the criticism.
dogberry
What does Obama's playing golf AND basketball tell us about the "little white balls" / "big brown balls" issue?
"Which is unfair but why do young men WANT to weep and sniffle over the problems instead of solving them?"
Well said. If you had started and ended there, I'd have given you 5 stars.
This possibly excessive drive for playing golf may correlate with the excessive drive to smoke cigarettes. The President, viewed up close, does not appear to conform to the precept that those who can successfully exert power over others, must first of all exert power over themselves.
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