Politico Reports President Biden Has Played Golf 10 Times in First 9 Months — Which is 54 Fewer Than Trump
Left: JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images Right: Leon Neal/Getty Images
Politico reports that President Joe Biden has played golf a whopping 10 times since taking office — which is a fraction of the outings that former President Donald Trump had racked up in his first nine months.
Politico’s West Wing Playbook newsletter did a deep dive into Biden’s presidential golf hijinks — or at least as deep a dive as the facts would allow — and initially reported there were 11 outings, two of which featured mystery partners:
The White House has provided a list of golf partners for nine of the president’s eleven outings at Fieldstone Golf Club near his home in Wilmington, Del. The White House did not answer questions about the other outings. The club’s directors and managers did not respond to several emails and calls Tuesday.
Reached by phone, a man named Mark in the golf shop only said, “Nope. Sorry. We do not give any information out. We’re a private club.”
…
Here is the list of Biden’s golfing partners so far:
Ron Olivere (the father of Hallie, Beau’s widow and the president’s daughter-in-law): 4 times
Steve Ricchetti: 4
Hunter Biden (grandson): 2
Ted Kaufman: 2
Jimmy Biden (brother): 2
Jack Owens (brother-in-law): 2
Jim Larkin (director of golf at Fieldstone): 1
But the White House later updated the newsletter authors: Biden only played golf 10 times, not 11, and the mystery guest was a fifth visit by Ron Olivere.
At the same point in his presidency, Trump had made 64 visits to golf properties, 63 of them to properties he owns. President Biden doesn’t own any golf resorts.
And while Trump hit the links within days of his inauguration, it took Biden almost three months to play his first presidential round.
Prior to his victory over Trump, Biden played regularly enough at clubs in Delaware, and during his stint s President Barack Obama’s VP, Biden was ranked 29th-best golfer in Washington, DC in 2011. But by the time he and Obama left office in 2017, he had slipped to number 68.
And while Biden did participate in the high-profile “golf summit” with Obama and then-Speaker of the House John Boehner, a review of pool reports from Biden’s eight years as VP show only a few mentions of golf with Obama.
Biden has been photographed rather infrequently playing golf, including at tournaments run by The Beau Biden Foundation, a charitable organization founded by his late son. It is the symbol for Beau’s foundation that adorns the cap that the president wears when he plays.
