Donald Trump thinks President Barack Obama plays a lot of golf -- more often, The Donald says, than professionals.
“The problem with the president, he’s played more than people on the PGA Tour,” Trump said to the Daily Caller on Wednesday. “He plays a lot. He’s like a touring professional in terms of the amount of play.”
Let's stop right there. Obama is in the seventh year of his presidency and he has played 248 rounds as Commander-in-Chief. That amounts to about 37 rounds per year. Your average PGA Tour player starts 24-25 times per year. Even if they miss the cut in every event they play, they'll get anywhere from 48-50 rounds on tour. And that's to say nothing of the amount of golf they play just practicing their craft.
So, no, Obama doesn't play more than PGA Tour players. Not even close.
However, Trump doesn't disparage that Obama, who he says has improved as golfer while in office, plays frequently. Instead, he laments that Obama hasn't used golf for more dealmaking, which is pretty much the point of any human interaction to Trump.
“Golf can be a great tool for making deals, but you can’t play with your friends, you have to play with people that you’re looking to — for instance, playing with [House Speaker] John Boehner and playing with [Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell and playing with people like that you need to make deals with,” Trump said. “It can be an amazing tool for getting things done and for making deals. If the president would use golf as a tool more than he does, I think it would be very positive."
Obama and Boehner, in fact, played a round together in 2011, along with Vice President Joe Biden and Ohio governor and current Republican presidential candidate John Kasich. Turns out, that was a one-time deal, primarily because so many of Boehner's GOP constituents thought the round made him look weak.
