Ronald Reagan had gone to Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership in 1983 to take a break:
He would keep in a sales space that had been his favourite. Dwight D. Eisenhower and would play on the course often known as the headquarters of the Masters Event.
Then a person rammed a gate with a pickup truck and drove to the golf store, the place he took hostages and demanded to talk to Reagan.
The episode ended after about two hours, with the president and hostages unhurt.
However Reagan determined that his time as head golfer of the nation was largely over.
“Taking part in golf isn't price it if you happen to threat getting somebody killed,” he stated, based on Joseph Petro, a senior member of Reagan's protection staff, who described the incident in his 2005 e-book. “Standing Near Historical past: The Lifetime of an Agent Contained in the Secret Service“(“Standing with Historical past: The Lifetime of an Agent Contained in the Secret Service”).
Reagan not often performed once more.
Presidents and holes
Newer US presidents have embraced golf as a bipartisan custom:
Former President Donald Trump hits from the golf green throughout the Professional-Am spherical of the 2023 LIV Golf Bedminster at Trump Nationwide Golf Course in Bedminster, New Jersey, on August 10, 2023. (Doug Mills/The New York Occasions)a strategy to clear your head and pat your self on the again by which a president is as seemingly as anybody to be betrayed by a golf membership.
However simply because the Reagan episode prompted the White Home to rethink whether or not presidential rounds of golf invited pointless dangers, attempted murder apparently pissed off on Sunday towards the previous president Donald Trump has raised questions in regards to the risks of navigation 18 holes in open areas.
Presidents and their Secret Service brokers have tried for many years to steadiness safety dangers with the necessity for sports activities shelters.
However Trump's method to golf, together with the frequency with which he performs and his said preferences for a handful of programs, has posed notably tough challenges for secret servicewho will get irritated when somebody he protects falls into predictable patterns.
After Sunday's potential try at Trump Worldwide Golf Membership West Palm Seashore, interim director of secret service He privately informed Trump that the company must take important new steps to guard him if he continued to play video games.
The warning from the company, which allocates fewer sources to former presidents than to a sitting president, raised the chance that Trump may alter the place or how typically he performs.
Trump typically performs at his programs, a few of which have just lately hosted tournaments from the Saudi-backed LIV golf league.
Some areas current better dangers than others.
In a single close to Washington, for instance, boaters have gone down the Potomac River in full view of Trump.
And the course in West Palm Seashore, Florida, is near public roads.
Different properties are extra remotedwith much less obvious alternative for a would-be attacker to get near the previous president.
However they’re nonetheless golf programs with few fortified shelters.
Trump typically drives his cart when he performs, and his programs typically stay open when he's round, with different gamers and guests free to look at and sometimes get near the previous president.
He’s vulnerable to interrupting his rounds for it signal autographsposing for footage and holding continuous press conferences to inject himself into the nationwide dialog.
(In rural Virginia final 12 months, for instance, he approached a New York Occasions reporter, iPhone in hand, to point out he was on the telephone with Kevin McCarthywho was then speaker of the Home of Representatives and was combating a debate over the debt ceiling).
Sitting presidents and former presidents, who obtain lifetime safety from the Secret Service, have usually taken a low-profile method to golf, both for safety or to mitigate the political dangers of taking part in a sport typically related to exclusivity.
(There's additionally the hazard of a missed shot changing into comedian fodder for the plenty.)
President Joe Biden He has performed solely sporadically since arriving within the Oval Workplace, which didn't cease him and Trump from battling it out on the stage in June over who was the higher golfer.
practices
Throughout his eight years in energy, Barack Obama He was a daily on a golf course at a navy base close to Washington, and reporters and photographers have been not often allowed to see his spherical.
George W. Bush stated in a 2008 interview with Politico and Yahoo Information that he had stopped taking part in throughout the Iraq Conflict as a result of “I don't need a mom whose son just lately died to see the commander in chief taking part in golf.”
However Bush additionally drew harsh criticism years in the past when, firstly of a roundtable dialogue, he spoke to reporters a few bombing in Israel and concluded:
“I name on all nations to do all the things potential to cease these terrorist killers. thanks Now take a look at this drive.”
Invoice Clinton He was an irrepressible golfer who reveled in the truth that his place made him a pretty taking part in companion.
Professional gamers have been keen to affix him and supply recommendation.
Close to the tip of Clinton's final time period, Trump invited her to affix one in every of his golf equipment; he agreed.
Many years in the past, in the past Gerald R. Ford started internet hosting pro-am tournaments, Eisenhower was the president who apparently couldn't cease taking part in, as a lot as his quick successor, John F. Kennedya extra achieved golfer than a lot of his presidential counterparts, felt self-conscious about being seen on a golf course.
“As he approached the ninth inexperienced, the president noticed a lot of photographers simply above the crest of the inexperienced,” recalled Paul B. Fay, a good friend of Kennedy's who served in his administration, in an oral historical past for the Kennedy Library.
“At that time he simply rotated and stated:
“I don't need my image taken, one of many first issues of my administration, taking part in golf. Go away'”.
Trump has proven a lot much less reserve, particularly since leaving the White Home.
Nevertheless, there have been occasions when he appeared to benefit from the pleasures of the sport or the moments of relative calm it provided.
On this, he and Clinton could have widespread floor.
“Although we’ve all these Secret Service folks round us,” Clinton as soon as informed Golf Digest, “that is the closest I get to being a traditional particular person.”
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