European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 18, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                I my the presidency Golf fits Clinton s style to a tee by Ellen Ladowsky special to Washington Post i or the second year running the Whitehouse press corps following Bill Clintono vacation missed the big Story in mar tha s Vineyard. Reporters paid Little Atten Tion to the one aspect of the president s schedule that begs for careful scrutiny his Golf game. Clinton is an aggressive golfer who has been Pur suing the game since Junior High. Yet there has been no careful analysis of the president s game Only the occasional report of his Handicap somewhere be tween 12 and 16 or his playing partners invariably Vernon Jordan. This lapse in presidential reporting is All the More astonishing Given that Golf has become the quasi offi Cial presidential sport. Nearly every recent occupant of the White House except Jimmy Carter has played the game and presidents As far Back As Taft have owned a set of clubs. Anyone remotely familiar  game understands that it is on the links that the full presidential personality with All its quirks and flaws bursts through. Consider president Clinton. He is the master of the Mulligan the widely invoked golfing privilege that allows a  remit a shot he d rather not re member. Nothing in All of sport seems a better metaphor for Clinton s own career of missteps and re Grets. If Only the Public had granted him mulligans with his Vietnam draft record his appointment of Lani Guinier or Ira Magaziner s health care plan. His game reflects his politics in other Subtle ways. Fittingly he hits the Ball with a slow fade moving it across the Fairway from left to right. His typical game can last As Long As six hours inconceivable for the average golfer but understandable for a Man who spent a year dawdling on health care and took months to choose a supreme court nominee. What a contrast to president Bush who was clearly a politician and golfer of the old school. His. Wasp Breeding taught him to accept the bad shots in stride and get on with it. Playing a round with Golf writer Dan Jenkins he refused to take a Mulligan on even the most embarrassing duffs insisting that he was too  a left hander who hit right handed his game occasionally seemed As forced and indecisive As his politics. Bush would Rush through 18 holes in under two hours much the Way he would dash through his speeches More eager to finish than reflect on his work. He never took a Golf lesson in his life and his swing like his presidency always retained an unpolished improvised look. As closely As their games mirrored their politics neither Clinton nor Bush can be compared to Dwight Eisenhower. For Ike Golf was indistinguishable from the presidency. He treated his two terms in office As the beginning of a Golf retirement. In eight years he played More than 800 rounds of Golf More than 200 of them at Augusta National Home of the masters where he had a Cabin just off the Fairway. Major policy announcements were frequently made from the clubhouse before he teed off in the morn ing. Yet even when he was Back in Washington Golf was never far from his mind. Vice president Nixon reported that Ike would typically work off the ten Sion of a National Security Council meeting by Tak ing a 5-Iron to the South Lawn. He routinely wore his spikes in the Oval office leaving puncture Marks in the floor. Eisenhower s game captured the comfortable if paranoid mood of the 1950s. Although his game was widely known to be a mediocre one his Handicap was never released to the press. Richard Nixon treated his Golf game the same Way he treated watergate he lied about it. Never a passionate golfer or much of an athlete he still worked tirelessly to get his game Down to a 14 Handicap. But the perpetually insecure Nixon was not satisfied. In one of his books he boasted about breaking 80, which de the late humor columnist Lewis Grizzard to ask who was keeping score g. Gordon Liddy in his autobiography golfing legend Sam Snead re counted a Story about a time when Nixon s Ball flew into deep rough. The president disappeared into the Bushes to retrieve it a few moments later Snead saw it arc effortlessly out onto the Fairway. I knew he threw it but i did t say anything wrote Snead. Press coverage of Gerald Ford s game enhanced his reputation As a bumbling if likeable Jock. His wild unpredictable tee shots that bounced off secret service agents and spectators were fodder for nearly three years of corny Bob Hope jokes. But Ford was such a Good natured player that his partners put up with his erratic play they treated him much the Way americans treated his presidency a perfectly accept Able substitute when the initial Choice has to drop out of the game. The lesson in All of this is obvious there May be More to be gleaned from a president s Golf game than from his poll numbers. Confident republicans in particular believing that Clinton is now on the ropes might Benefit by focusing their opposition re search on the president s driving and putting. People who have played with Bill Clinton report that he plays his strongest Golf on the Back nine. Ellen Ladowsky is a golfer who occasionally writes about politics. September 18. 1994 sunday Page 7