KNOWN as one of the more reserved, modest presidents of the USA, CALVIN COOLIDGE’s golf game was certainly nothing worth boasting about.

Coolidge was a real battler on the course, needing shots in double-figures to complete each hole. The 30th POTUS apparently played the game more out of necessity than love due to a surge in its popularity during the 1920s.

But considering his clubs were apparently the only thing he left behind when he vacated the White House for his successor Herbert Hoover, it’s probably fair to say President Coolidge wasn’t bitten hard enough by the golf bug.

A TRULY obsessed golf tragic, the 28th President of the United States, WOODROW WILSON, reportedly played more than 1,000 rounds during his tenure at the top.

So fanatical was he about the game, in fact, he could often be seen swinging golf clubs while debating policy, and Wilson even once had secret service agents paint golf balls black so the president could work on his game in the snow. True story.

Sadly, his prolific practice didn’t ultimately do his game much good – Wilson rarely broke 100 for a round, which meant he performed somewhere in the vicinity of 100,000 golf shots while in office. Respect.

WILSON’S predecessor, WILLIAM TAFT, played a lot of golf, too, despite being described – at best – as an average practitioner of the pursuit.

A self-confessed golf-addict, Taft played so much during his 1908 presidential campaign that he received advice from then incumbent president, Theodore Roosevelt, to tone it down after hearing complaints from advisors Taft was spending more time on his swing than strategy.

Really, who could blame him?

TRULY one of the worst golfers to hold the US presidency, WARREN G. HARDING truly loved the game and played a lot – twice a week – yet rarely shot under triple figures for a single round.

Lucky for the rest of us the Californian course that bears his name, TPC Harding Park – which incidentally hosted the 2009 Presidents Cup and 2020 US PGA  – is a dream golf layout that golfers of all levels can enjoy.

FOR many of us, golf is an escape from the stresses and politics of life and work, yet for former US president LYNDON B. JOHNSON it served as a pragmatic vehicle to drive a political agenda.

Lacking any real golf ability and having a preponderance to not count every shot, LBJ used golf as a way to get deals done, securing the votes needed from senators to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act while on the course. Fair play.

THE first left-handed US President to play golf, BARACK OBAMA reportedly pegged it up more than 330 times while in office.

When he entered office in 2009 he was a 17-handicapper, which he managed to whittle down to a respectable 13 by the time he left office.

When describing his golf game to Golf Channel’s Dave Feherty in 2016, President Obama was overly self-deprecating, saying:

“I think my irons are good, my drive is straight but unimpressive in length, and my putting’s decent, chipping is OK,” Obama said. “My sand game is terrible.”

Who of us can’t relate to that?

THE first left-handed US President to play golf, BARACK OBAMA reportedly pegged it up more than 330 times while in office.

When he entered office in 2009 he was a 17-handicapper, which he managed to whittle down to a respectable 13 by the time he left office.

When describing his golf game to Golf Channel’s Dave Feherty in 2016, President Obama was overly self-deprecating, saying:

“I think my irons are good, my drive is straight but unimpressive in length, and my putting’s decent, chipping is OK,” Obama said. “My sand game is terrible.”

Who of us can’t relate to that?

THE owner of a silky, fluid swing, JOHN F. KENNEDY is regarded as one of, if not the, finest golfers to grace the White House as Commander-in-Chief.

Reportedly averaging 80 on the scorecard, a chronic back injury and Addison’s disease prevented the 35th POTUS from truly reaching his full potential with the sticks.

In college, Kennedy was a single-digit handicapper playing on the Harvard golf team, but during his presidency was reluctant to be seen playing too often due to golf’s image as an elitist, rich man’s game.

A natural talent with golf clubs in hand, Kennedy once nearly hit a hole-in-one at Cypress Point par-3, his ball stopping just inches from the cup.

CURRENT US President Donald Trump tops our list of presidential golfers, boasting an impressive 2.8 handicap and 19 club championship wins to his name.

Taking up the game in college at the University of Pennsylvania, he once described golf as his “primary form of exercise”.

The billionaire also has a deep involvement in golf through the Trump Organisation, which at last count owned or operated 18 golf course and golf resorts in the USA, Ireland, Scotland and Dubai, including Trump Turnberry and Trump International Golf Links & Hotel Ireland (formerly Doonbeg).

In his book titled The Best Golf Advice I Ever Received, the president writes, “For me and millions of people — men, women, young and old around the world — golf is more than a game. It is a passion.”

We couldn’t agree more with that.

THE 41st President of the United States, GEORGE H.W BUSH, was always going to have an involvement in golf considering his close familial ties.

His maternal grandfather, George Herbert Walker, was a USGA president in 1920 and while in that role founded the Walker Cup – the pre-eminent biannual amateur event between the USA and United Kingdom.

Renowned as a fast player, President Bush reportedly zipped his way around the course in under two hours with a handicap of 20 while in the White House (which he got down to 11 post-presidency).

Outside the White House, Bush served as honorary chairman of the Presidents Cup in 1996 and as the first honorary chairman of PGA Tour’s youth outreach program, The First Tee.

He was also conducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2011.

“I do love the game,” Bush said.

WHILE Former US President BILL CLINTON is an avid golfer, often described as an enthusiastic hacker. No.42 had a White House putting green reinstalled after President Richard Nixon’s removal of it in the 1970s.

A lover of the ‘mulligan’ – so much so they’ve been renamed ‘Billigans’ in his presence – Clinton played to a 10 handicap at his peak after leaving office but was more regularly a high-80s golfer while in the White House.

Playing more than 400 rounds as president, he carried his love of the game post-presidency into the Clinton Foundation’s support of the PGA Tour’s Humana Challenge (2012-2015) which became the CareerBuilder Challenge (2016-2018).

The event was formerly the Bob Hope Classic, an event he played in 1995 as the first sitting president to play a PGA Tour event.

TAKING up the game in his teens, President FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT was an accomplished golfer well before becoming the 32nd president of the United States.

Reportedly a long hitter of the ball, he became a teenage club champion of a small Canadian golf club near his family’s summer estate at Campobello Island, New Brunswick.

While a prosperous golf career seemed inevitable, FDR was struck down after contracting polio in 1921, a debilitating condition that ultimately stripped him of the ability to play the game he so loved.

FORMER president RICHARD NIXON had a love-hate relationship with golf – a feeling which many of us can relate.

A decent golfer who reportedly played to a 12-handicap – and who even had a three-hole course built at his Californian home – Nixon became troubled by the game he so badly wanted to improve at, but couldn’t find a way.

Having once shot a 79, he eventually gave up the game during his second term in office and even had the White House putting green removed. Ø