HOLE
IN ONE
Richard Nixon |
Nixon scored a hole in one on Labor Day, 1961,
almost a year after losing the presidential bid in 1960, at Bel
Air Country Club in Los Angeles. He used a six iron and a Spalding
Dot ball on the third hole par three. |
HOLE
IN ONE
Dwight Eisenhower |
Ike's feat occurred after his presidency in
1968 when he aced the thirteenth, 104-yard par three at Seven
Lakes Country Club in California. |
| HANDICAPS |
Howard Taft became the first President to take
up golf in 1910, and scored in the low nineties. Woodrow Wilson
and Dwight Eisenhower were consistently in the eighties. John
Kennedy was the best White House golfer who shot in the low seventies.
Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton kept
their golf scores secret, while Gerald Ford proudly boasted a
twenty handicap. |
| THE
GAME |
Bob Hope once quipped that when Vice
President Spiro Agnew yells fore, you're not sure if he's relaying
his score or how many people he hit that day.
Gerald Ford once quipped, "I know
my game is getting better because I'm hitting less spectators."
At a political fund raiser in 1981,
Dan Quayle was criticized for attending a golf outing where a
female lobbyist was accused of "over friendliness"
with the participants. The incident was quickly dismissed by
Quayle's wife Marilyn when she stated, "Any one who knows
Dan, knows he would rather play golf than have sex any day."
|
| BAD
SHOT |
Former President George Bush played
a round of golf early in 1995. One of his shots ricocheted off
a tree striking a 70-year-old woman spectator in the face, resulting
in a pair of broken glasses and ten stitches. After treatment
at a local hospital, the woman remarked she was disappointed
the President didn't autograph the ball.
Mr. Bush came from a prominent golfing
family that included his grandfather, George Herbert Walker,
founder of the Walker Cup Tournament, and his father Prescott
Bush, who served as head of the USGA.
|
| PASSION |
President Woodrow Wilson once stated,
"Golf is an ineffectual attempt to put an illusive ball
into an obscure hole with implements ill-adapted to the Purpose."
Wilson was adamant about playing the
game year round however, including the use of red balls for snow
days and having his caddie tote a large flashlight for play at
night. One particular match didn't end until five o'clock in
the morning.
He claimed golf was a game of amusement,
not competition, and rarely kept score. On several occasions
his wife Edith joined him on the links, a rarity for a woman
let alone the First Lady.
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