In the course of the visit to Dublin of America's First Family on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton prefaced her remarks at the US Ambassador's residence by voicing her husband's principal regret about the brevity of the trip: "Bill is heartbroken he can't play golf." Outside the rain was falling on a chilly, windy, wintry day, and the Oireachtas ladies chuckled politely, assuming the remark to have been made at least half in jest, but my guess is she was telling the truth. William Jefferson Clinton is a certifiable golfing fool, and it wasn't the weather that kept him away. If they'd built a few more hours into his schedule, he'd have been out to Portmarnock in a flash.
One summer evening half a dozen years ago I found myself in Washington, and had dropped by the East Potomac Golf Club for a chat with my friend and swing guru, Julieta Stack. After her last lesson of the evening we had headed out for a bite to eat, but upon arriving at an Indian restaurant on Capitol Hill, we found the sidewalk outside swarming with members of the local constabulary.
Stick-ups in Washington are not uncommon, even in the shadow of the White House, and we first took this to be the case. As we approached, I asked one of the gendarmes if there was a problem.
"No, sir," he replied, `but if you're going in we're going to have to search you." When I asked why, he replied "because the President is having dinner inside." After submitting to a pat-down, we entered the restaurant to find Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton seated at one table, along with presidential adviser Mack McLarty and his wife Donna. Most of the other tables were occupied by Secret Service men vainly attempting to appear inconspicuous.
Once we had taken in the scene and placed our order, Julieta reached into her purse, took out one of her business cards identifying her as a certified LPGA teaching pro, and scribbled a note on the back. She then summoned our Punjabi waiter and asked him to deliver it to the man across the room.
The note read: "Dear Mr President, I've seen that swing on television, and I think I can help." Bill Clinton acknowledged the note with a smile and a cheery wave towards our table, and stuck the card in his pocket. Three weeks later, the leader of the Free World showed up, unannounced, at East Potomac. Julieta, much to her regret, was off that day, but the President went out and played a round on the scruffy municipal course anyway.
Bill Clinton, probably the best-golfing president since Kennedy, and certainly the most avid since Eisenhower, achieved an historical milestone of sorts by becoming the first president to actually lower his handicap (from 13 to 12) while in office.
This is no mean feat, particularly when you consider that every time he sets out on the links, his every shot is scrutinised not only by his playing partners and the odd reporter, but by a squadron of secret servicemen in motorised golf carts, not to mention the obligatory police sniper and another fellow who follows along bearing the secret codes for unleashing a nuclear attack.
While he has played with many of the top golfers of his era, Clinton confessed to being intimidated by playing with only one - Christy O'Connor, he confessed to Tom Friedman of the New York Times in an interview which appeared in Golf Digest this autumn. Two summers ago the President played a round with Himself at Ballybunion.
Clinton enjoys the company of golfers. "I get to play with all these pros and other good golfers, and they give me all this good advice," explained the President. Clinton, who has been trying to arrange a game with the disabled golfer Casey Martin, said he would also like to play with Tiger Woods and David Duval. He was even gracious in recalling the implicit snub when the victorious 1993 US Ryder Cup team declined an invitation to visit the White House.
Several of that year's Ryder Cuppers were irate over a measure passed early in the Clinton administration which had increased their already-healthy tax bite, and one of them, Paul Azinger, had also labelled the President a `draft dodger' over his anti-war stance during the Vietnam era - a charge which prompted a colleague of mine to ask at the time "Excuse me, but exactly what war did Paul Azinger fight in, anyway?"
When Friedman asked President Clinton to name his favourite courses, by the way, the first word out of his mouth was Ballybunion.
Once when he was Governor of Arkansas, Clinton recalled, he was feeling sufficiently stressed-out that he cancelled his appointments for the afternoon and sneaked out to a local course. He encountered a doctor who was also playing hookey from his office, and the two made up a game.
During the course of the round, Clinton smashed a 260-yard drive which missed the fairway and came to rest beneath a tree. Assaying his unenviable position, he tried the only stroke available, played "a three-iron, off my back foot," and miraculously holed the shot from 175 yards. His jubilation quickly subsided when he realised he was in the precise position of the proverbial priest who went out to play on Sunday morning and made a hole-in-one: Who was he going to tell?
"I'd just hit the best shot of my life and made an eagle, and I couldn't tell a soul about it," he recalled years later. "But at least I had a witness."
