He's Got Game Golf

I've a pretty strong interest in politics, though this here blog has become such a time-suck that I'm unable to keep up as previously.  Yet rarely does such a fine pot-kettle moment present itself, that we must boldly go there...

As you're no doubt aware, our President has been taking some heat for the amount of golf he plays, and this Zeitgeist was best captured by this N.Y. Post headline:

Now the intersection of Presidents and golf is perhaps more interesting than you might realize.  It goes back as far as William Henry Taft, the first POTUS to be a known (and pretty good) golfer.  Most will know of

Taft, better known as the Lumpy of his era.

Ike's love of the game, as he famously installed a putting green just outside the Oval Office.  Russell Kirk, a paleoconservative of the era famously comment on criticism of Ike from the right, "Ike's not a communist, he's a golfer."  Not sure those categories are mutually-exclusive, as Fidel and Che were known to play spirited Nassaus....

JFK was perhaps the best golfer amongst Presidents, though he sought to keep that a closely guarded secret... at least until that famous Seinfeld episode.  And of course the Bushes loved their speed golf, though W. gave up the game in the later years of his term because he didn't want grieving families to see him frolicking.

Now, as relates to the current POTUS, there's actually two separate issues that are being lumped together.  The longer-term issue is the shear amount of golf being played, and wouldn't you know that there's a website Obamagolfcounter.com?  Now I'm a reasonable human being (you might want to get a second opinion on that one) and think that in general we should avoid criticizing presidential vacations and activities both because it sounds petty and they never really get away from the madness.

But of course the left didn't give Reagan or Bush the benefit of the doubt on this issue, so pot-meet-kettle

Just a little bit outside...

from where I sit.  I also think that the time he spends chasing a little white ball is time he can't spend fundamentally transforming the country, so I see it as win-win.  But you might differ there...

I also think that when people criticize any president playing golf, that they're using golf as a proxy for other misgivings, and I'd prefer that they go to the effort of thinking through and articulating their real concerns.  That's obviously a more difficult undertaking, but we'd all be the better for it.

In the case of the Post story above, the issue is that after providing strong words about the brutal beheading of an American journalist, the Prez headed straight to the golf course and is captured yucking it up with his homies, exactly the optics that his predecessor sought to avoid.  But this is of a piece with heading to a fundraiser the morning after the September 11, 2012 murder of a U.S. ambassador and three others.  The reader will have to draw their own conclusions, but this writer has long believed that we elected Chance the Gardner to be our President, and twice no less.

So, why do I bring this up?  Mostly because I can.... But here's what I find strange, per this Luke Kerr-Dineen post that's been open in my browser for days:

President Barack Obama has been under a lot of fire recently for playing what his critics say is

 too much golf -- especially after he played with former Boston Celtics and Miami Heat

basketball player Ray Allen last Saturday at Martha's Vineyard. But the most interesting thing about Obama's round with Allen isn't who his partner was, but rather what he was playing with. 

You'll see in the picture at right an arrow pointing to a red thing clipped to Obama's belt. That's GAME golf, a stats-tracking tool that we've written about before.

Now that system only is worth the effort to the extent that the data is downloaded and analyzed in depth.  Does anyone but me find it passing strange that POTUS has that amount of time on his hands?  I just find it all kind of creepy, even though I'm perfectly fine with him using golf as a diversion from the stresses of the office.   Can we all agree that one doesn't usually run for Prez for the purpose of shaving a few strokes off their index?  

Obviously I'm not alone in these thoughts as per these cartoons making the rounds:

And kudos to the cartoonist above for his attention to detail, actually drawing the driver as left-handed.  Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Lastly, as part of the Common Core, this question has been added to standardized tests, wherein the student is asked to choose which of these four objects does not belong.  Careful, it's not as easy as it might seem at first blush: