PRESIDENT OBAMA this weekend will be playing golf "on Martha's Vineyard -- his regular August getaway -- so it seems like an appropriate moment" to wonder what golf can reveal about Obama, who by all accounts has "become increasingly obsessed with hitting little white balls into tiny holes," according to a cover story by Michael Hirsh of POLITICO magazine. Golf "has become, more and more, Obama’s refuge from public life -- and, perhaps, from what even some friendlier critics are wondering will be seen as a partially failed presidency." Obama himself, who "has pretty much given up his first sporting love, basketball, because of a fear of injury, has said that playing the game is a way 'to relax and clear my head.'" Yet even a "relatively sympathetic pundit like the Washington Post’s DANA MILBANK recently questioned whether it was wise for the 44th president to be tallying 180-plus rounds during his much-troubled tenure." Perhaps Obama’s approach to golf "can tell us a thing or two about his presidential legacy." It is "fair to question whether his isolationism on the course reflects his entire approach to leadership" (POLITICO magazine, 8/7 issue).
