Tales from the Trail

Romney takes a swing at Obama golf habit

Ros Krasny

Dec 7, 2011 18:25 EST

Most presidents have their hobbies. George W. Bush loved to clear brush on his Texas ranch, and to take long mountain bike rides. Bill Clinton played the saxophone. John Quincy Adams reportedly liked to skinny-dip in the Potomac River.

Barack Obama likes to play golf. And Republican challenger Mitt Romney doesn’t approve.

The Romney campaign on Wednesday launched a website, fortyfore.com, that takes a swing at Obama’s golf habit. The site says that Obama has played “1,584 holes since 2009″ — the equivalent of 88 rounds of golf as he nears the end of his third year in office. That would put Obama far short of House Speaker John Boehner, who reportedly works much harder on the links to maintain a single-digit handicap.

Romney’s fundraising site questions whether Obama should get “‘Fore’ More Years,” and invites Romney fans to donate $18 — or more — “to send President Obama on a permanent golfing vacation.”

“It’s time to have a president whose idea of being ‘hands on’ doesn’t mean getting a better grip on the golf club,” the website suggests.

Romney has been driving at Obama’s golfing habit all week. “He’s going off for 17 days for golf in the sun,” the candidate said during a teleconference with Iowa voters on Monday, about Obama’s upcoming trip to Hawaii.

Obama Hawaiian Holiday: Tee Time

Tabassum Zakaria

Dec 26, 2009 17:14 EST

On the day after Christmas, President Barack Obama had an early morning conference call with national security advisers about the Northwest plane incident, went to the gym with his wife Michelle, went back to his Kailua holiday home and then… it was tee time!

Obama and four friends, yes that’s right a group of FIVE, went for 18 holes on the Kaneohe Klipper course at a nearby Marine Corps base.

Now for non-golf aficionados (like me) a foursome is the customary maximum for a golf  game. So five would raise some eyebrows in golfing circles.

But of course, there is also a long-standing tradition that the President of the United States gets to play the game any way he wants.

For example, there are stories that Bill Clinton, when he was president, apparently had a rule that he was allowed as many mulligans — or do-overs — as he wanted (some called it the billigan).

George H. W. Bush apparently liked to golf quickly and frowned upon people playing with him taking too many (if any) practice swings (that comes from someone with first-hand knowledge).

The golf course where Obama is playing has some rules of its own: no muscle shirts, cut-offs, swimsuits, bare midriffs, or slippers (for those who go straight from bed to the green?)