Golf is the unofficial game of the American presidency. In the century
since William Howard Taft became the first golf aficionado
to live in the White House, only three of 18 presidents—Hoover,
Truman, and Carter—have chosen not to play the gilded game. And when
Congressional Country Club, in
golf championship this month for the third time (it was there in 1964
and 1997), the event will serve as a reminder that golf remains one of the
capital’s favorite pastimes for flesh-pressing.
Golf fans will likely presume that Congressional
is suspending for a single week the usual dealbrokering
by politicos. But in fact the capital’s
power games are played at a number of marquee
area courses: the East Potomac Golf Course in
DC, where Joe Biden enjoys teeing off; the secretive
TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm, in
tough track that’s the choice of so many legislator-golfers that a 2004 Senate
vote had to be delayed until GOP senators finished a round; and Burning
Tree, the country club of the capital old guard, which counts House
Speaker John Boehner as a member . . . .
you’ll have to buy the magazine to see the whole article . . . but BTW, that reminds me of a story . . .
