The United States has had very golf-oriented presidents in its history. Dwight Eisenhower was intimately associated with Augusta National, both Bushes are/were longtime fans who became regulars at major golf events, and Barack Obama, despite his well-documented love of basketball, also became a almost irreducible. None of them, however, reaches the level of Donald Trump, a distinguished golfer who also has courses on both sides of the Atlantic. He’s played with most of the world’s elite golfers, his courses are famous, and Trump National in New Jersey will host the 2022 PGA Championship. In his first eight weeks in office, he’s taken the time to playing golf 11 times. He was nicknamed the “golfer in chief” – not always fondly, mind you – on Many times.
It wouldn’t be telling stories outside of school to say that none of the Democratic contenders hoping to challenge him in November have a golf resume comparable to that. Not even close. But what do they really think about the game? Do they hate it? Are there any secret golfers among them? Let’s examine each candidate, working from top to bottom using the current national polling averages on RealClearPolitics.
As a teenager, Sanders was a legitimate track star, finishing third in the Brooklyn indoor mile championships and winning the Flatbush cross country championships and a number of other races while serving as captain of his high school team. He also played basketball at school and continued to play at least until the thirties in Vermont, where he was known as a “slick” mid-range shooter with sharp elbows. (Those of us who are very online know that you can I still find clips of him showing off his talents.) In Burlington, as mayor, he became obsessed with tennis. He has even brought minor league baseball in Vermont.
But golf? My friends, I am here to tell you that there is one and only proof that Bernie Sanders never thought about sport during his life. It comes from this story from New York Magazine from 2014, where a “political associate” allegedly said the following: “This guy works 100 hours a week. Maybe he hit a golf ball once or twice at the driving range. It’s his pleasure of the year.
Other than that? Nothing. Which probably makes sense: He grew up poor in the city, and golf is, in some minds, a sport reserved for people with money and access to land. You may not know this, but Sanders has some thoughts on wealth inequality, so he and golf aren’t a perfect fit. Trump once claimed Sanders would do it golf to go if he became president (putting on my fact-checking hat, I call this claim “unlikely”), and this is one of the rare cases you can find online where the Vermont senator is even associated far from sport… even if you can buy one Sanders ball marker and hat clipif that’s your thing.
Golf ranking: Very rare range rat.
Biden looks like someone playing golf, and actually, those looks aren’t deceiving. Most recently, he made headlines during an August 2014 golf outing with his son Hunter and some “associates” (I’m trying my best not to make this post political, so follow this link Or this link If you want). As Golf Digest pointed out during the last election, it is supposed to be a a single digit disability. John Kasich, however, sowed doubt on that self-assessment at the 2012 Republican National Convention, and if he’s right that Biden has embellished, it would fit a pattern: He played football and baseball in high school, but he may have summer caught in a lie about playing college football at Delaware.
Golf ranking: Legitimate hacker with delusions of grandeur.
I’ll spare you the suspense: Bloomberg is the biggest golfer on this list, and anyone who paid attention to presidential politics last week saw the topic move to the forefront in the Twitter war between him and Trump. See:
Trump is trying to emasculate Bloomberg, 77, via golf, and while Bloomberg’s response doesn’t specifically invoke golf, his history with the sport is long. he is I already tweeted about thisused golf to attack Trump in a TV advertising and has fought Trump on the details of building a course in the Bronx. These developments seem to indicate that if Bloomberg wins the nomination, golf could be a major battleground in the 2020 election. Hooray?
The recent dustup also makes it very difficult to Google anything about Bloomberg and golf that doesn’t involve Trump, but clearly he’s part of the “play golf with other people” club famous” for some time. long durationand the absolute best information about his golf game comes from this New York Times articlewhich alerts us to a few key facts:
1: He only started playing in 2000, at age 58.
2. Once he started, he became obsessed, to the point that he hired professionals to help him with his swing and bought a swing simulator to measure his swing speed.
3. His security guards kept his clubs in their car so he could go to a course at any time.
4. It took him a long time to improve, and it took him a while to get over 100.
5. He is “scrupulous” about his score, and also gets very angry on the course. Relatable.
6. Trump is apparently right about his unimpressive distance.
7. In 2009, he was filming in the 80s and 90s.
8. He belongs to clubs all over the east coast, as well as a club in Bermuda.
9. Comically, Trump once said of him, “If he had more time to play, he’d be a terror.” »
Golf ranking: On the passion side, a real late-flowering McCoy. In terms of skills…I worked hard to become a normal McCoy.
My friends, things are about to get a whole lot shorter. When I Googled “Elizabeth Warren golf,” suspecting there would be very little meat, the first result was a video titled “Fighting for the view of the golf course. » It sounded promising, but it turns out that Golf View is a neighborhood in North Liberty, Iowa. Apart from that, remote associations are mostly tweets attack Trump for spending time on his golf courses. There’s no real evidence that she played any of them sports, unless you count “debate” (she went to college on a debate scholarship). She love the show “Ballers”, and she once I ran across a fieldso you will have to settle for that.
Golf ranking: Shrug emoji.
Buttigieg is the mayor of a mid-sized city in the state of Indiana, which is essentially the basketball capital of the world, but when he was recently asked if he had ever been to an NBA game , he replied that he had “not had the pleasure”. » If this information makes you think that his golf experience will be limited, well… you think right. Aside from the usual golf-related attacks on Trump, Buttigieg’s only real interaction with golf in his personal or professional career occurred when he attempted to sell a public South Bend course to developers. had to abandon the plan under pressure.
Has he ever played? The only piece of evidence I found was from this article from Politico,, which confuses more than it enlightens: *“But after choosing a side salad, Buttigieg stands at the dais and delivers a careful and witty overview of his priorities. He admits that during golf outings, he generally hangs out near the putting green to avoid “injuries or arrests.”
This sounds vaguely promising – at least there have been some “outs” – but during a debate in November, while emphasizing his contrast with Trump, he was unequivocal:
Golf ranking: He wants to sell your public golf course and thinks you can get arrested if you leave the green.
Golf ranking: Attacked the wrong Donald.
He’s a billionaire, but in an interview with the Los Angeles Timeshe had this to say:
Look, I spent seven years traveling full time speaking to people across the country. You know, whatever people think, whatever you think of me, which is probably playing a lot of golf? I don’t play golf. Do you spend a lot of time on vacation? I don’t take vacations. Go out and do expensive things? Other than running for president, I don’t do a lot of expensive things.
There is some evidence that he recently sponsored a golf tournament, but that was about the campaign.
Golf ranking: Money is wasted on him.
Golf ranking: Known to hang ten, but not in the humiliating way most of us are used to.
The conclusion is that we are dealing with a motley crew, golf-wise, and that it would be difficult to put together a quartet. But if you would like to vote based on each candidate’s golf history (Note: Please don’t do it do this), here are my power rankings:
1: Bloomberg
2: Biden
3: Sanders
4: Klobuchar
5: Steyer
6: Gabard
7: Garenne
8: Buttigieg
PS, if you were wondering, yes, Andrew Yang plays golf. Too bad he quit last week.
