Obama managed to get in several other quick rounds, often with David Katz, the campaign's photographer and a scratch golfer who was a member of the University of Michigan golf team. In Ohio, for about 90 minutes on one blessed afternoon last June, Obama and his aides watched transfixed, on a campaign-bus television, the last four playoff holes between Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate at the U.S. Open. "We were cheering them both on," Nicholson recalls. "It was such a nice break."
Before becoming president, Obama insisted they play unplugged golf: no cell phones or BlackBerrys on the course. For the front nine, it would just be Obama and the guys and golf (and usually no chatter about anything but the game). At the turn, the phones would be turned back on. Obama and the guys would grab a hot dog and a beer. Maybe a call or two would be placed, or an e-mail returned. Then on 10, the phones would be shut off again. It's hard to believe President Obama will be permitted to go wireless when playing, but he would if he could.
"Golf really is now one of his true loves," Nicholson says. "He loves to play, and he admits that he's not a great golfer. But when he becomes an ex-president, he told me the other day, he'd like to try to become a single-digit handicapper." Hope he can believe in.
Don Van Natta Jr., an investigative correspondent for The New York Times, is the author of First Off the Tee: Presidential Hackers, Duffers, and Cheaters from Taft to Bush. He is at work on Wonder Girl, a biography of Babe Didrikson Zaharias.
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