Capitol Games

The limousine is actually the fastest, most heavily armed golf cart outside a James Bond movie, and it glides up nearby regularly, seemingly without warning.

President Clinton alights, then heads for the first tee at Congressional Country Club, frequently with Washington lawyer Vernon Jordan in a five-hour, 80-some-stroke (give or take a mulligan or 12) escape from the White House.

Many swings have helped straighten out his slice in his second term.

“Oh, he plays here all the time,” says Maxine Harvey, an administrative assistant at Congressional.

She will say no more, keeping the same counsel she does about the games of all of the club’s 1,100 members, but those who have played with Clinton say it’s a round of chatter and jokes, broken by yells at his ball.

“He is probably more sheer fun than anyone I’ve ever played with--and that’s thousands of people,” says Roy Neel, president of the U.S. Telephone Assn. in the book “Presidential Lies.”

“He has a real appreciation [of golf], but he’s not a purist.”

The liberal mulligans, oft-used metaphorically by his Republican critics, attest to that.

He’s called the First Golfer, but actually he’s only the Most Recent, because every president since William Howard Taft has played, save for Herbert Hoover, the fisherman; Harry Truman, the poker player; and Jimmy Carter, the softballer, jogger and rabbit hunter.

Taft got it started in 1909, which was tough because he had to get a club past his 355 pounds, marked down to 295 by a presidential lie. He played well enough to score in the 90s, often enough to become a target from critics who figured he should be more concerned with tariffs than tee shots.

“The beauty of golf to me is that you cannot play it if you permit yourself to think of anything else,” he said, and he permitted himself to think of nothing else about twice a week.

He was a better player than Woodrow Wilson, but most were. Wilson’s steady score of 115 or so wasn’t from lack of effort. He played six times a week, and Washington’s snows were no deterrent, because Wilson found he could play with balls painted red by a Secret Service detail and left to dry beside a White House furnace.

As an everyday player during World War I, he found it difficult to escape the burdens of office. Wilson learned of the sinking of the Lusitania while playing in Maryland. He played one morning in 1917, then went to Congress to ask for authority to declare war on Germany. The next day, he was back on the course.

Warren G. Harding’s escape was twofold: from the pressures of the office and limitations of Prohibition at the Chevy Chase Club, where members were incensed by his imbibing on the course. Release came from Edward McLean, owner of the Washington Post and of a private golf course, where waiters appeared with Scotch-and-sodas every four holes or so for Harding.

“He and Kennedy probably gambled more on a golf course than any other presidents,” said Andy Mutch, a historian with the U.S. Golf Assn.

Harding shot in the 90s, and his game was a $6 Nassau ($6 for the front nine, $6 for the back nine and another $6 overall), with presses and side bets, two or three times a week.

Calvin Coolidge wouldn’t have bet him, or anyone else. Coolidge, a tightwad, liked the game more when he found one of the perks of office was honorary membership at any Washington club he chose to play, including Congressional, where he was the guest of honor at its opening in 1924.

He left early to get his usual nine hours of sleep.

Coolidge was the only president to play left-handed and was an indifferent player with little aptitude for the game--he took an 11 once on a 130-yard par three at McLean’s private course--or any other sport. When he played, it was often in high-top tennis shoes, and when he left the White House, he left his clubs behind.

Franklin D. Roosevelt had played the game well, winning his club championship at Campobello in his youth, and played often until being felled by polio in 1921. But he left a legacy to the game with his New Deal’s Works Progress Administration building municipal courses all over the country.

Not playing was difficult for him.

Said wife Eleanor: “Golf was the game that Franklin enjoyed above all others. . . . After he was stricken with polio, the one word that he never said again was golf.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower was a fanatic, picking up a golf club upon getting out of bed in the morning, carrying it through the White House during the day, stepping onto a specially built putting green outside the Oval Office and working on his short irons on the lawn.

He occasionally broke 80, played twice a week in Washington and twice a day on vacations at Augusta National. Little irritated him more than having reporters around watching his backswing.

Or worse, his putting.

He was about 225 yards off the tee, often with a slice and temper, and near the green, Eisenhower was deadly.

Said his press secretary, James Hagerty: “I don’t know how much I’ve made on small side bets, figuring when he’s 70 or 80 yards away, he’s going to get down in two.”

John F. Kennedy played his own game and well, but surreptitiously and strangely. He was aware of the public’s criticisms of Eisenhower. During the 1960 campaign, Kennedy took a few hours off to play Cypress Point on the Monterey Peninsula, where he lofted a seven-iron toward the pin on the par-three 15th hole.

“Go in, go in,” yelled Paul B. Fay, later undersecretary of the Navy.

The ball hit the pin and came to rest six inches from the cup.

Said Kennedy: “You’re yelling for the damn ball to go in the hole, and I’m watching a promising political career coming to an end. If that ball had gone into that hole, in less than an hour the word would be out to the nation that another golfer was trying to get in the White House.”

As president, Kennedy would spirit himself from the office, heading for a course and playing wherever he could find a vacant hole.

His bets--dime-a-hole, closest to the pin, longest drive, sandies, greenies, anything else that could be wagered--were legendary.

“It’s hard to figure out his game,” said Mutch, the USGA historian. “He seemed to only play betting games he could understand.”

That worked out for Kennedy, perhaps the richest president, but one who never carried money. So did gamesmanship.

“Presidential Lies” recounts his round with Chris Dunphy, chairman at Seminole Golf Club at Palm Beach, Fla. On one hole, Kennedy’s iron shot came to rest three feet from the cup.

Kennedy: “That’s a gimme, right?”

Dunphy: “Putt it. That’s the kind of putt that builds character.”

Kennedy: “OK, but you disappoint me. Anyway, I had better hurry. I have a lunch date with the director of the Internal Revenue Service.”

Dunphy: “That putt’s good.”

Lyndon Johnson, something less than a stellar athlete anyway, hit a long tee shot, but rarely a straight one. As such, he outmulliganed Clinton and still couldn’t score.

Johnson’s game was politics, his burden the Vietnam War and he saw no reason to leave either at the first tee.

Richard Nixon was clumsy, but he set out to learn the game as Eisenhower’s vice president. Nixon took lessons after earning a scolding from Eisenhower, who lost with him and his handicap as a partner in a match at Burning Tree, the exclusive men-only club in suburban Maryland.

Nixon soon hit his tee shot 175-200 yards down the middle and got his game down to the 90s, and occasional 80s.

He had a hole in one at Bel Air Country Club in 1961, and said “golf became my lifesaver” after Watergate.

Nixon had appointed Gerald Ford as his vice president with the resignation in disgrace of Spiro Agnew, trading one wild golfer for another. Ford was and is renowned for tee shots that threatened the gallery, and his victims while he was in office covered a wide range because a younger Ford could pound a ball 250 yards.

Ronald Reagan played the game often and well in his acting days, but once a year--on New Year’s Eve at Rancho Mirage--while in office. Once a 12 handicap, even as he approached 80 he still had a swing that he could be proud of, according to Lee Trevino, who once played with Reagan, along with Tom Watson.

George Bush’s game was and is one of speed--he once had a 1-hour, 42-minute round.

Said son George W. Bush, governor of Texas: “My father’s measure of success is not how low you score, but how fast you play. His goal is to always finish 18 holes in less than three hours.”

In that way, among many others, he is different from Clinton.

Said the White House’s current occupant: “What I like about golf is what other people dislike: It takes so long to play.”

The respite is temporary, for nearby there is the limousine, ready to whisk him back to the real-world problems of the White House.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Rating the Presidents Who Played Golf

No.: 1

President: John F. Kennedy

Handicap: 7-10

Comment: Seldom played 18 while in office

*

No.: 2

President: Gerald R. Ford

Handicap: 12

Comment: A good athlete. Long, but erratic off the tee

*

No.: 3

President: Dwight D. Eisenhower

Handicap: 14-18

Comment: Had lots of practice in the White House

*

No.: 4

President: Bill Clinton

Handicap: 9-16

Comment: Claims 9, but mulligans. Inconsistent

*

No.: 5

President: George Bush

Handicap: 22

Comment: Was half that before taking office. Three-hour player

*

No.: 6

President: Richard Nixon

Handicap: 18-22

Comment: Steady putter, straight, short off tee

*

No.:

President:

Handicap:

Comment:

*

No.: 7

President: Ronald Reagan

Handicap: 12

Comment: Handicap at peak, once-yearly player in office

*

No.: 8

President: William Howard Taft

Handicap: 22-25

Comment: Not bad for 355-pounder

*

No.: 9

President: Warren G. Harding

Handicap: 28-32

Comment: Used every shot to win bets

*

No.: 10

President: Woodrow Wilson

Handicap: 40

Comment: Even though he played six days a week

*

No.: 11

President: Lyndon Johnson

Handicap: 40

Comment: Never broke 100 without mulligans

*

No.: 12

President: Calvin Coolidge

Handicap: 45

Comment: Once took 11 to reach 130-yard par-three

*

No.: 13

President: Franklin D. Roosevelt *

Handicap: 15

Comment: A good player until stricken with polio

* Did not play in office because of disability