Ike and the Gang

One of many reasons for Eisenhower's popularity with the troops was that he was a general who could swear like a sergeant. At Augusta he is remembered as a man of moderate speech on the golf course, except when he missed a short putt. But there are ecclesiastical dispensations for that sort of thing.

Like many golfers, Eisenhower sometimes took a less than specific view of scoring. Robert E. Clark, who was then covering the White House for the International News Service, recalls that once Ike was on the North Portico with some sports figures and when asked about his golf game, he happily told his audience he had just shot a 72. That alerted the press corps, who knew Ike never flirted with par at Augusta. It turned out the President was talking about a little executive dog track near Gettysburg, Pa.

Rank does have its privileges and Eisenhower was not one to bend a fragile back to check his ball. At Burning Tree, outside Washington, D.C., where Ike played every Wednesday afternoon he could, he was famous for identifying his ball by rolling it over with his dub until the logo appeared. If his lie was improved as a result, nobody minded very much. One afternoon, Eisenhower was thus maneuvering his equipment when the ball somehow darted up against a rock.

"What happened?" Ike asked, looking sternly at his caddie.

"Mr. President," the caddie replied. "I'm afraid you have over-identified your ball."

Eisenhower was not hounded by the media as a President is today. When Ike came to Augusta, he was usually accompanied by six secret service officers and perhaps a dozen members of the press.

Only once during those eight Presidential years was the small press group allowed to accompany Ike on a full round at Augusta. They were treated to a rare sight. Ike hit two balls into the water at Rae's Creek, and the President, who did not take kindly to losing golf balls, stripped off his shoes and went after them to the delight of the reporters.

By modern contrast, Hardin recalls that when President Reagan made his one visit to Augusta, he was guarded by 90 operatives and trailed by a glum media contingent of more than 400. "The media in President Eisenhower's day," Hardin adds, "did not think they were as important as they do now."

By the end of his second term, Ike was in his 70s and tired. Even before accepting the burdens of the Presidency, he said, "The years are getting so they flash by me like the pickets on a fence." Now, eight years and one major heart attack later, he was ready to quit. It was not given to him to exit public life as he wished. He took the loss of Vice President Richard Nixon to Senator John F. Kennedy as a personal failure. He called it, "the biggest defeat of my life." Mamie, who knew something of being a golf widow, comforted him saying he should go immediately to Augusta, "and knock the hell out of the ball and forget about it."

Ike was on an 11 o'clock flight the morning after the election.

The General's heart began to fail him. He suffered his second major heart attack in November 1965 while staying in the Augusta cottage. In time Ike's doctors permitted him to play golf again but confined him to carts and only on par-3 courses. Ike grumbled that next they would be making him hit from the ladies' tees. In April 1968, he suffered a third attack and was sent to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D. C. He would not leave it alive. On March 28, 1969, with his family in attendance, he turned to his son, John, and said, "I want to go. God take me." And then he was gone.

Dwight D. Eisenhower held center stage in the global drama of this century for more than 20 years. He led a mighty Army to victory on the European continent in as noble a crusade as any armed force has ever been engaged. He was President for two terms during some of the bitterest years of the Cold War.

From all of that, what do you suppose was his happiest memory? That is easy. On Feb. 6, 1968, at age 77, he was playing at Seven Lakes Country Club in Palm Springs, Calif., when he came to the 104-yard, par-3, 13th hole. He hit a 9-iron into the cup for his first and only hole-in-one. He said it was "the thrill of a lifetime."