How Often Does Barrack Obama Go Golfing
In the final hours of his presidency, there was a lot to celebrate about Obama. For instance, he had a great grasp of complex issues, a measured temperament, and a great eloquence. Additionally, Obama was supportive of the golf industry.
It was not that he signed any special legislation in support of golf. Rather, it was the fact that he played quite a good amount of golf. Although his passion for golf made him a target of conservative critics, he never dropped his passion for the game. Read on to find out what RunRex has found out about his golfing.
How His Playing compares to Other Past Presidents
While in office, Obama played over 300 rounds of golf, the exact amount is 306 rounds. However, that was tiny in comparison to the president who played the most amount of golf. According to the records, Woodrow Wilson played 1,200 rounds when he was president. Another president who played a lot of golf in recent memory was Dwight Eisenhower. Eisenhower played 800 rounds of golf while he was POTUS. However, Obama played a significantly higher amount of golf than either Bush or Bill Clinton.
When the figures are tabulated on a yearly basis. It comes to just about 38 rounds of golf every year. However, that figure is well above the national average of 19.3 by golfers in the country. If Obama were to be ranked, he would fall into the category of an avid golfer. These golfers play more than 35 rounds a year. The category of avid golfers only covers about 2.1 percent of all people in the US. The figure also represents just slightly over a quarter of all golfers in the country.
When compared to avid golfers, Obama is at the lower end of the spectrum. On average, avid golfers play about 56 rounds annually. Obama matched that figure only once according to existing data. However, most avid golfers are retirees who do not have much responsibility like being in charge of the free world.
Obama’s golfing picked up in his second term. During this time, he played about 47 rounds of golf every year. This was a major increase. Especially considering that, he played 27 rounds on average in his first term. His lowest year playing golf was in 2012 when he was busy with his reelection campaign.
With Obama gone, he has been replaced by Trump, who knows quite a lot about the game. In fact, he even owns quite a few golf courses. With Obama now having so much free time on his hands, it is expected that he will play more golf. It is imaginable to expect that he will be spending quite a lot of his free time on the courses.
What Trump Though about Obama’s Golfing Habits
Trump used to say that Obama played more golf than even the professionals did. He claimed that Obama was playing more golf than professionals were on the PGA Tour. However, those utterances may not be entirely true. The data show that PGA Tour professional play about 48 rounds while on tour. However, they have to play even more rounds that time during practice.
However, Trump says that he does not have a problem with Obama playing so much golf. In fact, he commends him for having improved his game while in office. Trump had a problem with Obama not using golf for dealmaking. According to Trump, any round of golf the president played while in office should have been an opportunity to close deals favorable to the country.
According to Trump, Obama should not just have been playing with his friends. He should have been playing with the people such as the house speaker or the majority leader. These are people, who Trump thought, could help Obama close some great deals on policy. Trump said that playing golf could have been a positive thing for Obama if he had used it in that manner.
However, Obama did actually play golf with people on the other side of the political divide. For instance, in 2011, Obama played golf with Boehner and VP Joe Biden. Besides that, the governor of Ohio, John Kasich, joined them on the golf course. However, that as the only time he ever managed to play golf with Boehner. The main reason was that GOP constituents thought playing with Obama made him look bad.
How Other Presidents Handled their Golfing compared to Obama
Obama’s passion for golf as in stark contrast to that of Bush, who played just 24 times while in office. Bush stopped playing golf in 2003 since he felt images of him playing golf were insensitive. It was especially so considering that US soldiers were involved in wars the Middle East.
Other presidents in recent memory such as Bill Clinton and J.F. Kennedy kept their golfing habits away from the public as much as possible. Obama tried to avoid making his golfing public. However, in the modern era of intense scrutiny of the president, it was quite hard. Conservatives used pictures of him playing golf to bash him endlessly. They claimed that he was being insensitive to issues the country was facing.