What does Obama's golf game say?

Of all the witty things that have been said and written about golf over the years, there is one that is true above all:
Golf doesn't build character, it reveals it.

A colleague, but a better golfing partner, sent along this clip yesterday. It has to do with President Obama's fondness for the game, and the fact that in the first nine months of his new job, he has already played as many rounds of golf as the latest President Bush did during his first 34 months in office.

As this significant finding seeps across the Internet, expect it to spark the predictable nonsensical furor that has always been associated with presidents and golf. In this case, how could the man be playing this stupid game when the economy is in the toilet, we are fighting two wars, health care is broken beyond recognition, and to this day, there are STILL starving children in China?!

Frankly, who cares how much golf the guy plays. What we should be concerned about is what kind of player he is, and how he conducts himself on the golf course. This would really allow us to get to know the man behind the podium better.

Consider what we know of past presidents and their golf games...

Let's start with Dwight D. Eisenhower because he was the sitting president when I was born.
See how honest I am? What do you think that says about how I conduct myself on the golf course, eh?
OK, I'll shut up. Moving right along...

Eisenhower was the Babe Ruth of presidential golfers. During his eight years in office, Ike played over 800 rounds of golf. For the math-challenged, that is is over 100 rounds per year! This is a staggering number, no doubt, until you consider that America was just coming off of World War II and the Korean War. Americans needed to inhale some fresh air and take a well-deserved break in the 1950s, and our president helped lead by example on the links.

John F. Kennedy: Kennedy is said to have possessed the most elegant, athletic and graceful swing of all of our presidents. Elegant, athletic and graceful will land you lookers like Jacqueline Onassis -- and any other number of babes, no? He was also said to be a fierce competitor on the links, a trait which might, in part, explain how he became our youngest president elected to office. Er, besides daddy, Joe's, money, that is.

Lyndon B. Johnson: Didn't play much, and when he did, was said to be an awful player. It is not clear whether he sought help for his swing, but we do know he did not seek or accept his party's nomination to run for the presidency in 1968.

Richard M. Nixon: Was not the most athletic guy, and took the game up late in life. He was also not averse to the occasional one or nine mulligans over the course of a round. In a book by Don Van Natta Jr. on this very subject, he writes that Nixon was often caught on tape saying, "Oh, that didn't count," after knocking a tee ball well to the, er, left. His problems with tapes and the left were only beginning...

Gerald Ford: Next to Ike, nobody played the game as much as Ford. Ford is notorious for hitting spectators off the tee in pro-ams, but was actually a very good golfer. He had one of the great quotes on that sore subject: "I would like to deny all allegations by Bob Hope that during my last game of golf, I hit an eagle, a birdie, an elk and a moose."
Ford's honesty and candor made him the perfect guy to follow Nixon, eh?

Jimmy Carter: Did not play the game, so we'll turn this around: What did his presidency say about what kind of golfer he would have been? Well, he most likely would have been too far left off the tee, conceded too many putts to his opponents, and been late for his tee times because he was stuck in line waiting for gas.

Ronald Reagan: Well...Has been labeled a casual golfer, and in the '70s described the game as, 'a sissy, rich man's sport.' Of course, that came from the same guy who rode horses. Reagan's strength was most likely the ability to put bad shots and rounds out of his head. During his 1992 questioning about the Iran-Contra Scandal, he was also asked about the state of his game, to both questions he answered, "I don't remember the details at all."

George H.W. Bush: Played so quickly that he often described his time on the course as 'aerobic golf.' Seldom did one of his rounds last longer than three hours. With a battle ax like Barbara waiting for him at home, is it any wonder his pattern was to get on and off something as quickly as possible? Of course, his presidency was a quick one, too, as he served only four years.

Bill Clinton: Clinton loves the game and played 'a round' whenever he could. Seldom kept an honest scorecard, and was a notorious cheater on the golf course. Said he didn't see length as a prerequisite for a good game. OK, OK, seriously, this is like shooting fish in a barrel. You fill in the rest...

George W. Bush: Like daddy is a very quick player. Is said to be good off the tee but couldn't be bothered with pondering the nuances of the short game. Is not detail-oriented on the course. So he basically shot first and asked questions later.

Which brings us to our current president...

Van Natta Jr. has a piece on Obama's game in the latest issue of Golf Digest. In it he writes that, "Obama approaches the game in the same way that he conducts his politics -- maniacally methodical, aggressively competitive and devoutly risk-averse."

Oh, and he is also the first president to play the game from the left side.
I'm telling you, you can't make this stuff up.

For baseball's sake, keep Rose out

All of us sportswriters are in this virtual press box at World Sports Blogs, so it makes it kind of difficult to really get to know one another on this budding site.

I mean, there's no free buffets, locker rooms, or lame press conferences where we can congregate, laugh at coaches' canned quotes, shoot the bull, or, better yet, argue with each other.

With that admittedly murky backdrop, I am now going to publicly disagree with one of our better columnists, Justice B. Hill.

Disclosure: I do not know Mr. Hill, and have never argued with him before.
I do know good, thought-provoking copy when I read it, however, and felt compelled today to take the other side of the man's well-penned assertion that Pete Rose deserves a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Before providing supporting copy to buttress my argument, a lame attempt to curry favor with Mr. Hill, who had no idea all this was coming.

He is 100 percent correct when he argues that Rickey Henderson was a better leadoff hitter than Rose. That one isn't even close in my book.

"The Man of Steal" was one of greatest offensive forces that ever played the game. Yeah, he stole bases with reckless abandon, but he also could hit for power and was a run-scoring machine. For my money, he was the most disruptive force to ever play the game. The guy drove pitchers crazy.

Not that Pete Rose was chopped liver...
Good grief, the guy has more hits than anybody in the game. But it was how he played the game that separated him from the rest.

Nobody, and I mean, nobody, played harder than he did.
I'll never forget the 1970 All-Star Game -- a meaningless contest -- when Rose knocked Cleveland catcher Ray Fosse head over heels to score the game's winning run in the 12th inning. Fosse was never the same player after that brutal collision, but it helped cement Rose as the game's greatest competitor.

The younger set might not be aware, but when Rose drew a walk he actually sprinted down to first base -- every time.

Charlie Hustle? You bet, and then some...

But for all the good his hustling did him on the field, his hustling in the dugout would be his ultimate undoing.

Rose was a serial gambler.
The guy didn't just bet on sports, he bet on baseball.
He didn't just bet on baseball, he bet on his own baseball team.
He didn't just bet on his own baseball team, he bet on his own team when he was coaching that team in the dugout.

Rose didn't just break baseball's sacred rule against gambling on the sport, he obliterated it.

And when it all came out in the famous Dowd Report in 1989, one person above all finally came around to the notion that what went on was so potentially destructive, and so below board that permanent placement on the ineligible list was the only prudent course: Pete Rose.

Yes, it was Rose who voluntarily agreed to a lifetime ban from baseball.

He did so in exchange for Major League Baseball dropping the investigation; that he could apply for reinstatement in one year (for all the good it would do him); and most important to Rose, that he did not have to admit or deny that he ever bet on baseball.

No, that last part would astonishingly have to wait a full 15 years. By that time, the bungling Rose had managed to convince all but his most ardent supporters that he was not only arguably the game's greatest cheat, but also its biggest liar, and profiteer.

True to form, Rose's honesty came with a price when he owned up to all his transgressions in a 2004 book, My Prison Without Bars.
Charlie Hustle, indeed.

So now the game's greatest cheater and liar, had managed to make a handsome profit on the long-awaited truth.

Pete Rose knowingly broke baseball's ironclad rule that prohibits betting on the game -- much less on his own team when he was its coach. Then he spent the next 15 years lying about it. Then he profited handsomely from all the chaos he caused when he finally came clean.

Rose has already gotten way more than he deserves. I respectfully submit that to further reward him with a place in the Hall of Fame wouldn't be justice, Mr. Hill.

Peace.