George H.W. Bush and a legacy of golfing American Presidents
By Bill Felber
Woodrow Wilson and Warren Harding: Golf balancing the pressures of leading a nation
Like Taft, who he defeated in a three-way battle for the office in 1912, Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) was an avid golfer. Unlike Taft, Wilson went to some lengths to not be seen on the links, presumably out of concern that he would not be taken seriously by the electorate.
Still, the belief is that Wilson was playing seriously at least by the time of his election as governor of New Jersey in 1910, and possibly sooner.
The website “Presidential golf tracker” estimates that Wilson averaged at least 150 rounds a year, probably more than any other president in history. Don Van Natta Jr., author of “First Off The Tee,” confirms that Wilson played six or nine holes daily under doctor’s orders to relieve job stress. In fact, the website and Van Natta both contend that he at least once instructed members of the Secret Service to paint his golf balls black in order to enable him to play in the snow.
By all accounts he was not, however, very good at the game, rarely breaking 100
Wilson’s successor, Warren Harding (1921-1923), was widely known (and criticized) as a country club kind of guy, so it’s probably no surprise that he was a frequent habitué of the course. In the laissez-faire times of the early 1920s, he was also comfortably open about it, going so far as to attend the 1921 U.S. Open championship and present the winner, Jim Barnes, his trophy. That remains the only instance of a presidential trophy presentation in Open history.
In fact, in 1921, as Congress was in the process of passing a resolution formally ending American involvement in World War I, the president was on a New Jersey golf course. Informed that the resolution had been passed, he left the course for a nearby home, signed the resolution, then returned to the course to finish his round.
The president died in August of 1923 in a San Francisco hotel room during a West Coast trip that included golf on his agenda. In fact, just a few days before his death he played six holes in Vancouver, Canada, quitting due to fatigue. At least two well-known courses, TPC Harding Park in San Francisco and Harding Municipal in Los Angeles are named after the nation’s 29th president.