President Trump is arguably the best golfer ever to inhabit the White House. Although he doesn’t exactly have a golfer’s physique, the 70-year-old president sports a 2.8 handicap — which means he often shoots par, or sometimes even below par.
He’s been a golfer all his life and when he made a fortune in the real estate market, he started buying up golf courses. Unlike former presidents, who often went to presidential retreat Camp David for weekends and home for holidays, Trump heads to his golf resort 30 miles outside Washington, D.C. or to Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla.
One more thing: Because he’s rich (and now, president), Trump doesn’t play with your average group of weekend hackers. Take Friday, when he teed off with this group: Tiger Woods, one of the greatest golfers in history, Dustin Johnson, the world’s No. 1 player, and Brad Faxon, an eight-time winner on the Professional Golfers’ Association tour.
Faxon penned a column for Golfweek detailing the round of golf with the famous foursome, praising the president for his hospitality — although he did rib him first.
“I kind of busted his chops and said, ‘Hey, where’s the love? I thought you were going to tweet my name too!'” Faxon wrote. “He laughed, and I told him I was trying to get up to 70,000 followers on Twitter. Trump immediately replied, ‘I have 158 million.'” (Actually, Trump has 43.4 million followers on his personal account.)
Of his day with the president, Faxon said Trump is “a fun guy to joke around with. You would think you’d have to tip-toe around a bit with the President, but he immediately puts you at ease.”
Faxon, a member at Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, even revealed that the four had split into teams to play a match.
“We played a casual best ball match with a small wager — President Trump and I played Dustin and Tiger. They played from the back tees at 7,600 yards and we played up to the blue tees at about 6,500 yards. The President was gracious and entertaining. He told some stories, things he loves about the job and things he doesn’t love. I think he was excited to be in that group and we had a lot of fun,” Faxon said.
“By the way, my 9-foot birdie putt on 18 sat on the lip to end the match all square. Kind of politically correct, isn’t it?” Faxon joked.
The former PGA player said that Tiger “looked great” — one of the few eyewitness accounts to Woods’ progress since the former No. 1 player had fusion surgery on his back this year.
“I was impressed with how far he hit the ball. Probably on the 10 holes that they were both hitting driver, Tiger hit it past Dustin half the time and Dustin hit it past Tiger half the time. He looked great. I think more than anything, he looked at ease. He was not concerned about swinging hard and going at it with driver. The ball flight, the sound off the club, all of it was right there,” Faxon wrote.
And Woods’ short game is there, too. “Tiger looked like he had all the touch shots down. On the very first hole he hit a pitch shot over a bunker that looked great. Hit some tough little pitch shots, tough chip shots and hit some close. Some to gimme’ distance,” wrote Faxon.