Yesterday, I found myself watching (among many other videos), one titled: “Top 10: U.S. Presidents in Golf”. The videos addressed ten past US Presidents (this was pre-Trump) and their love for golf, including an assessment as to how good they really were. I have long been aware that most US Presidents liked to play golf, including the current President, and the one before him, and the one before him etc. and reflected that golf may have been a perfect antidote to such a demanding job. I was surprised to learn that some of them were quite good and possessed respectable handicaps (better than mine in my long ago golf hey day), and enviably were able to play with the golf stars of their day. One of my relaxations these days is walking around our local woods, which includes a public golf course, and where I learned to play the game as a fifteen year old, enjoying the setting and often reminiscing on past golfing adventures. I later returned to it when I became a computer consultant and gave it up for marriage some twenty years back. My motto was “smell the roses and *** the golf”, for I was never that good but like many was drawn to play and try to master this fascinating, frustrating game.

The reason for the interest was in noting a comment by a friend, echoing a point raised at a White House press conference that President Trump got to play rather a lot of golf and it was somewhat hypocritical of him to criticize his predecessor for dereliction of duty in favour of the golf course. Other than make the point that the evidence points to the fact Trump is an incredibly hard worker with enormous reserves of energy given his age, I am neither going to defend or attack this criticism. But it did occur to me, given the extraordinary pressures he is under, playing golf is a smart move, as is having family and friends around him that he can trust. Except on occasions like when he got recently to play with the Japan Prime Minister, and no doubt building a relationship, it is hard to say that Trump’s playing was anything more than personal relaxation, but then I don’t begrudge him that. I was intrigued to discover how good the Donald really is. Even so, I suspect such is the nature of the man that playing golf is a perfect antidote from a job with enormous pressures and combining business with pleasure, as he did most recently with Rand Paul, is a smart move. If we believe his words that seemed to be exaggerating his golfing prowess, one might conclude that he is better than the ten afore-mentioned Presidents, but the word is – he is good, and all I can add is happy golfing.