POLITICS DECEMBER 30, 2009
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It’s been a tough first year for President Obama, as critics throughout the body politic bemoan that Mr. Change-We-Can-Believe-In is looking more and more like Mr. Politics-As-Usual. With the coming new year, however, POTUS has a prime opportunity to regroup, reload, and revamp his image. He could start by ditching golf.
Seriously. Its venerable White House history notwithstanding, golf is a dubious pastime for any decent, sane person, much less for this particular president. Why would a leader vowing to shake up Washington--to alter the very nature of politics--sell his soul to a leisure activity that screams stodgy, hyperconventional Old Guard?
There are signs that Obama has been nursing a creeping golf addiction for some time now. He took up the game a little more than a decade ago as a newbie state senator hoping to bond with more rural, conservative colleagues. Next thing you know, he was hooked--playing for cash, fretting over his form, and goading staffers to cut out of work early for a quick round.
During the 2008 race, Obama’s golf outings drew less notice than his battles on the hard court. But, now that he’s firmly ensconced in the Oval Office, the sticks have come out of the closet as Obama constantly looks to squeeze in a few holes: on Father’s Day, during the family’s summer holiday on the Vineyard, immediately upon touching down from his June trip to Europe. It is often noted that this president hit the links more frequently in his first nine months than the reared-on-golf George W. did in his first two years (after which W. conspicuously swore off the game out of respect for the troops). Currently ranked eighth on Golf Digest’s list of presidential golfers (sandwiched between Clinton and Reagan), Obama seems intent on moving up the ladder--despite reports that he’s something of a duffer.
Various explanations have been floated for Obama’s embrace of golf: (1) Professional advancement. Ostensibly why Obama started playing, golf is indeed a time-honored way for ambitious political and business types to schmooze. In First Off the Tee, Don Van Natta Jr.’s book about presidential golfers, we learn that, as vice president, Richard Nixon went so far as to take lessons in hopes of impressing his golf-crazed boss, President Eisenhower. (2) Escape. All those hours of intense focus on getting the wee ball in the wee hole provide relief from the pressures of the office. (3) Testosterone. With all of the competition but none of the bruising of real sports, golf is what hard-charging alpha males turn to when they start getting too old to bang around in the paint. (4) Image control. Obama’s enthusiastic adoption of this most corporate of pastimes reassures middle-Americans that their history-making black president isn’t too urban, edgy, or cool. (As a bonus, golf is popular among retirees, who were stubbornly unwowed by Obama’s trail talk of hope and change.) (5) Tradition. With only three of the past 18 presidents not playing the game, golf is just something Americans expect our leader to do.
But just because other presidents have done it doesn’t mean there aren’t political risks involved. In the popular imagination, golf is the stuff of corporate deal-cutting, congressional junkets, and country club exclusivity. And, unless a president is very careful, a golf habit can easily be spun as evidence of unseemly character traits ranging from laziness to callousness to out-of-touch elitism. As a senator, John F. Kennedy scored political points on Eisenhower by mocking Ike’s golf obsession--while taking pains to keep his own golfing gifts under wraps. (As Van Natta recounts, JFK forbade the media from photographing him at play.) Bushes 41 and 43 were both slammed for golfing during wartime. It has been posited that W. quit the game in part because of the stinging coverage of comments he made on the golf course in August 2002, following a suicide bombing in Israel. “There are a few killers who want to stop the peace process that we have started, and we must not let them,” Bush told the assembled journalists. “I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive.” The tone-deaf clip eventually made its way into Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. It was not one of golf’s finer moments.
More broadly, for all the blather about how golf is soooo much less elitist than it used to be--a line being aggressively peddled these days by the head of Scotland’s Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews in an effort to return the game to the Olympic lineup for the first time in over a century--it remains largely the province of reasonably affluent white guys. (Memo to the R&A: That whole golf-is-egalitarian pitch might be more persuasive if your club weren’t still boys-only.) There are fewer black faces on the PGA Tour now than there were three decades ago, and Augusta National’s 2003 fight to keep women out of its clubhouse did nothing to improve the game’s sexist rep.
And if we really want to get harsh about it: Golf is a dying game--on the skids for nearly a decade, according to a 2008 report by the National Golf Foundation. The number of Americans who golf has fallen by some four million, while the number who golf frequently (25-plus rounds a year) has plummeted by a third. One observed problem: evolving family dynamics. Men once free to spend all weekend on the links are now expected to help shuttle the kids to soccer, walk the dog, and generally pull their weight on the home front. The first lady may be understanding about her man’s special recreational needs. But does President Obama really want to be associated with a game so antithetical to modern life?
Michelle Cottle is a senior editor of The New Republic.
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15 comments
"Antithetical to modern life"? If so, then the problem isn't that the president plays golf; it's that he plays actual golf. Get the man a Wii and a copy of Tiger Woods 2010 and everyone wins: The president gets to keep playing golf, but in a form that is completely in keeping with modern life. Plus, his daughters can join him on the Wii.
- rhubarbs
December 30, 2009 at 9:58am
The Journal ran a story a couple of weeks ago bemoaning his adoption of golf at the expense of basketball at which he was much better. Their bottom line - "Basketball - yes you can. Golf, no you can't."
- Juniper
December 30, 2009 at 10:25am
Idiotic. Golf is a terrific pastime for a President. It's outdoors, it allows some venting, it doesn't require a bunch of other players and no one gets hurt. I play frequently, almost always at municipal courses, and haven't witnessed any corporate deal-cutting. A dying game? I'll admit golfers are older than they used to be – the question of who can take the time to play these days is real – but in this atmosphere what game is thriving? Should he play tennis (now there's a real dying game), bowl or maybe visit casinos? Don't say wind-surfing. Give the man a break. Maybe you should learn to play.
- emccded
December 30, 2009 at 11:33am
Elitist , deal making, testosterone, alpha males, old rich white guys. Dying sport. Yada yada. Should be sticking to basketball. Geez. Michelle, maybe he plays golf because he enjoys it. I can think of worse pastimes than hitting the links in Hawaii.
- dubyadoubte
December 30, 2009 at 12:56pm
"...(3) Testosterone. With all of the competition but none of the bruising of real sports, golf is what hard-charging alpha males turn to when they start getting too old to bang around in the paint...." Too old to "bang around in the paint"? Wozzat?
- malahat
December 30, 2009 at 1:08pm
C'mon, Michelle, get a grip. At least he's not cavorting with interns. Besides, Clinton played, too, and he did OK. bl - it's a basketball reference. Please tell me you were being cute.
- butchie b
December 30, 2009 at 1:28pm
I agree that Ms. Cottle's focus on Obama's golfing seems idle. The Journal's article was much better, focusing on his skill rather than turning it into some existential matter. But for me, she has a larger point in that in the customer-facing, corporate settings where I've always worked, golf metaphors are rammed down your throat. Which is obnoxious as I don't play, don't intend to and am always told to tailor my message to my audience.
- Juniper
December 30, 2009 at 1:29pm
Thanks butchie. I thought"testosterone" and "bang(ing) round in the paint" made for a cute unintentional double entendre.
- malahat
December 30, 2009 at 1:44pm
I am NO golfer. And, I'm a genuine fan of Ms. Cottle's writing, especially some of the snarkier stuff. But, this is a bit too lazy. No one really thinks that if golf disappears, privilege and elitism would disappear, do they? And anything that gets middle aged people WALKING ain't all bad. Our bodies ARE more than soft wiggly sacks for transporting around our brains.
- turnipauto
December 30, 2009 at 3:04pm
I think that playing golf may have been a problem for wealthy aristocrats like George W. (or George HW) Bush, but I don't think that Obama's vulnerability is that he's too associated with "country-club exclusivity". He is the first African-American president, was raised by a single mother and grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii. He doesn't exactly reek of WASP privilege. If anything, as you acknowledge, his problem with some (mostly older) voters is that he seems too new, too different and potentially too radical (though his policies aren't). Playing a game associated with middle-aged suburban guys in polo shirts is probably reassuring to more voters than it offends. Golf may be (largely) "the province of reasonably wealthy white guys", but a lot (or at least) of these guys are probably also independent/swing voters and it can't hurt for them to see that they have something common with the president.
- PeteM
December 30, 2009 at 3:04pm
Can somebody please get Dick Cheney's take on this? I'd like to hear that. Then I'll decide how I feel.
- nunziobal
December 30, 2009 at 3:37pm
What a shock, the wife says Barrack should give up golf. Yeah, and spend more time decorating the house eh? Obviously Ms. Cottle has never enjoyed the Good Walk Spoiled. Golf is a game of decisions. How are donditions? How well can I hit this club? What if I don't hit it right? It's maddening decisions, but it takes your mind away from the problems of the day. If someone has a problem with Golf, you really won't get their respect by quitting. They will complain about your carbon footprint, your gas guzzler or your torture of animals for food. The President is doing just fine with his game. Shows youthful vitality and a curiousity. I'd schedule a few rounds with Mr. Tiger and allow him to vent from one father to another, in between stories.
- CRS9TNR
December 30, 2009 at 9:12pm
I assume Ms. Cottle writes this with her tongue pressed powerfully against her cheek. Even so, GIVE OUR PRESIDENT A BREAK. I've never played golf, but I understand from my non-affluent women friends who do that it refreshes the mind while giving the body all the benefits of a lovely walk outdoors. According to them, concentrating on driving or tapping the wee ball into the wee hole serves as a kind of meditation that puts other cares, however briefly, at rest. Besides, any game that elicits an exuberant leg kick like this from Mr. Obama has got to be good for him. 2009 was a tough year, at the end of the Decade from Hell, in which President Obama's historic election was one of few bright notes. I want our President rested and refreshed as he and our country face 2010. And may 2010 be a better year, and the opening of a much better decade, for us all.
- Ellen in CA
December 30, 2009 at 9:51pm
"Michelle Cottle's "Bunker Mentality: Barack Obama's Dangerous Obsession with Golf" is woefully misinformed. Has she ever actually played the game? The secret that those of us who play and love this game is that, more than any other sport, it requires a blend of mind and body. It really is a game for intellectuals. It is both physically and intellectually challenging to play well, which is one reason so few people have the ability and patience to do so. Moreover, despite all the nonsense about alpha males, it is not a contact sport. No one gets sent to the hospital, unless they fail to exercise and thus avoid self-inflicted back injuries. If you want a testosterone thrill, golf is not the way to get it. It was one sport that us little guys, and of course girls as well, could play and avoid the macho nonsense of so much sports. Moreover, only a small minority of people who play golf belong to snooty, private country clubs. The vast majority of us play public courses or go to a driving range for an hour or so. Further, as anyone who has been to a public course in recent years knows, golf is now a multi-ethnic sport. President Obama spent many years in Chicago which has dozens of excellent public golf courses. In the Midwest, where I first started playing, public golf courses have been a low-cost alternative at least since the 1950s. Of course, the President of the United States can play at the most exclusive clubs if he wishes (and probably as the Secret Service prefers) but his passion for the game is a sign of his good taste and mental health. Counter-intuitively, playing golf may enhance his appeal working class Democrats and counters his image as a snooty elitists. Word has it that the President plays fairly poorly, as is expected from a beginner, but that he deals with frustrations and setbacks well. That is also a good sign in a President. For anyone who faces lots of pressure in their professional life, the opportunity to focus on the things that go into executing a fine golf swing is most welcome. Being able to actually execute the shot requires a terrifically satisfying blend of mind and body that is, well, really difficult to explain if you've never done it. Maybe Michelle Cottle should take some lessons. I can recommend a fine pro at a public driving range in Silver Spring, Maryland seven miles outside the beltway. I don't agree with the President about some things but I do identify with him regarding the golf issue: we little guys, who got pushed around by the bigger guys found in golf a way to combine mind and body. Where other sports focus on subordinating oneself to the team, the responsibility for the game rests entirely on one player--yourself. Doing well requires spending lots of time alone on a practice range, a bit like spending lots of time at one's desk writing. This is a game for people who think for themselves and can spend long periods of uninterrupted time with themselves. Whether you agree or disagree with the President, he is a man with a mind of his own. Forget the hype of golf on television. Obama's interest in the game is a sign of good taste and a welcome ability to enjoy himself, especially in the face of the burdens of the Presidency.. JCH
- jcherf
December 31, 2009 at 12:47pm
This is one of the more stupid columns TNR has published, and that says something. Obama should give up golf because JFK dishonestly criticized Ike for playing golf. Or because George W Bush made a stupid comment on a golf course. Should Obama give up press conferences too? Bush made many stupid comments at press conferences as well. The article is also ill-reported. I just finished playing golf at Wilson Golf Course in LA. The course is a United Nations meeting. I doubt there is a place in America -- except on other public golf courses -- where you get Blacks, Whites, Jews, Hispanics, and Korean Americans interacting in such a friendly, equal, manner. Obama's natural constituency plays golf at public courses all over America. Of course, reporting would prevent Cottle from employing stereotyping, and the latter is more fun I suppose.
- bwickes
December 31, 2009 at 8:48pm