It was a steaming hot 90-degree day in D.C. yesterday and the President of the United States was not hunkered down inside the air-conditioned White House puzzling about the economy or Iraq or Somali pirates. Nor was he out pooper-scooping after the new first puppy on the South Lawn. He wasn’t even shooting hoops at the Georgetown gym.
Instead, he was smacking a little ball around a well-maintained greenspace with a few buddies.
Of all the things one of the world’s busiest people could be doing for five hours with one of his rare windows of free time, Barack Obama chose to sneak over to a course at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland for a not-so-quick 18 holes.
Here’s the straight story from a pool report http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/04/obama_golfs_sunday_at_andrews.html but perhaps more revealing is this post from the ABC News site that notes one of his partners had the audacity to crush the president’s hopes by beating him on the scorecard. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/04/potus-loses-at.html
The reports at the time of the election suggested that Obama is a 20-something handicapper who’d love to get better but just hasn’t had time to play. Sounds like about half of America’s golfers, huh? No word on whether he has the Clintonesque habit of taking mulligans (“presidential pardons” as #42 called them).
You have to wonder whether there were any West Wing discussions about the political implications of yesterday’s presidential golf outing. First because of his predecessor’s famous but goofy decision to give up golf during his second term because it somehow looked unseemly to play while there was a war on. Secondly, given some of the recent criticism leveled by Democrats in Congress at the connection between golf and some of the more spectacular financial flame-outs, there may have been a political correctness issue within his own party.
But, say what you will about the president, his party and his administration’s politics, he essentially said: “Screw it…I like to play golf.”
Considering both the state of the world and the state of our industry, that’s a great message.
