At a meeting of the club’s governors, Eisenhower proposed chopping it down. He might’ve achieved the feat more often if not for a loblolly pine tree located left-center of the 17th fairway, which gave him fits. With a handicap ranging between 14 and 18, Eisenhower broke 80 four times at Augusta in eight years. Eisenhower was a member there for 21 years and visited 29 times in his two terms, playing 210 rounds, according to presidential records. Of Eisenhower’s several course associations, he is most closely connected to Augusta National Golf Club. He played Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings at Burning Tree Country Club. Democrats joked that Eisenhower put in a 36-hole workweek. The president’s preoccupation with the game became a national punch line. “If I don’t improve,” Eisenhower once said, “I’m going to pass a law that no one can ask me my golf score.” He drew the line, however, when asked to divulge his score. Like a regular duffer, Ike loved the game no matter how badly he played and sneaked in a round whenever possible. Golfers could identify with Ike, “a congenital slicer” with an adequate short game and an unreliable putter. Near the end of most days, Eisenhower slipped on his golf spikes, grabbed his putter, wedge and 8-iron and marched to the South Lawn, cleats clacking. He had a putting green installed on the White House grounds. In 1925, Eisenhower played his first round while attending the Army’s Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. “Probably few men in the long history of the game have ever been bitten by the golf bug as badly as the president.” “Whatever remained to be done to remove the last traces of the average man’s carefully nurtured prejudice against a game originally linked with the wealthy and aloof was done by President Eisenhower,” historian Herbert Warren Wind, a Hall of Fame member, wrote.
Don Van Natta Jr., author of “First Off the Tee,” wrote that when Eisenhower assumed office in 1953, an estimated 3.2 million Americans played golf by 1961, that number had doubled. Together with Arnold Palmer, their charisma changed how Americans viewed golf and sparked the nation’s interest in the sport. Fred Corcoran, the legendary golf promoter, once said Eisenhower’s devotion to golf was “the greatest thing that ever happened to the game.”įor being the game’s unofficial ambassador, Eisenhower was selected for induction to the World Golf Hall of Fame in the Lifetime Achievement Category. Not since Mary Queen of Scots has a head of state done so much to popularize the game. Eisenhower brought golf to the White House lawn and played nearly 800 rounds while in office. Eisenhower played golf much more than Trump when in office.Īs our golfer in chief, President Dwight D. Again, it’s very possible he’s on the phone, wheeling and dealing, as he carts around the golf course, but remember, this is the man who repeatedly lampooned Barack Obamafor golfing and said he would not “have the time” to golf if elected, also saying he would “just want to stay in the White House and work my ass off.”Įisenhower was considered one of our most effective Presidents. Īccording to an NBC report, this is the 86th day he has spent golfing in just under a year in office. View image on Trump has arrived at his south Florida golf club again this morning, marking his 86th day at a Trump golf property, and his 112th day at a Trump property since taking office. That’s two days in a row after so enthusiastically exclaiming it was time to get back to work. Guess what? According to press reports, the president just showed up today at another one of his golf courses to, yeah, once again attempt to hit a very small ball into a very small hole. There was a senator present, after all, so maybe they talked about, uh, something or another? That’s sort of like work. Day after Christmas, filled to the gills with tryptophan and he golfed, no big deal. So, imagine everyone’s surprise when he showed up at the golf courseto hit the links with PGA Tour golfer Bryson DeChambau, former PGA player Dana Quigley and Sen. I'm not going to have time to go play golf." -Donald J.
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