Head down, follow through
What, you have probably been asking yourself, do 16 out of the last 19 presidents have most in common? The answer lies in one four-letter word: Golf! It isn’t called the game of presidents for nothing. It is called that because the avid pursuit of a little white ball from one hole to another takes place outdoors on beautiful grounds that the Secret Service can easily close to the public. Nobody knows the president’s score unless he wishes. Mulligans are accepted. Conversation is lighthearted and never recorded. And what takes place on the 19th hole stays on the 19th hole.
But now, according to Golf Digest, we have a president who is really good at golf. He won 19 club championships. In fact, Golf Digest dubbed Donald Trump “golfer in chief” and ranks him as the top golfer out of all of the presidents who played. Finally! Something the fawning members of the Trump Cabinet can really praise him lavishly for without choking on bile.
Trump is better than President Obama, whom Trump constantly tried to ridicule for playing the game although Trump plays twice as much as Obama did. Trump’s even better than John F. Kennedy, who had been ranked No. 1 of all the presidents despite his bad back but who now is No. 2. Trump has played about one out of every five days since taking office.
Golf Digest’s Jaime Diaz wrote of playing with Trump: “[His] swing is imperfect but grooved, and it soon engenders a certainty that nothing really bad is going to happen to his golf ball. He has a flat takeaway well to the inside and loads hard onto his right side. Before starting down, his shoulder plane raises into what at first looks like a duffer’s over-the-top move. But Trump simultaneously unleashes the kind of aggressive opening of the left hip that is rarely seen in older amateurs, clearing the way for the club to release from an inside path.”
Trump’s 16 golf courses (with three more under construction in Indonesia and Dubai), like his businesses and hotels around the globe, make him hundreds of millions of dollars even though he is president and conflicts of interest are rampant. The fees Trump charges for membership in his clubs range from $10,000 to $300,000. Trump’s 2016 financial disclosure said one course, the one in Virginia, generated $17.5 million in revenue.
But even though Trump mocked Obama for playing golf, it seems churlish to begrudge some playtime to a hard-working man like Trump, who is, believe me, focused on repealing Obamacare and consumer and environmental regulations and generating a tax cut for the rich members of his golf clubs.
The more time Trump spends on the links, away from the Oval Office, the better. And he rarely tweets while playing.
Ann McFeatters is an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service.