There has been some discussion about the president being good at golf, which I find annoying. I cant have him play my favorite sport and also be good at it. But when you watch him play, as you can on YouTube, you see that he has what youd call a terrible swing and a very bad putting stroke.

Its possible he is good compared with bad golfers, but he is certainly bad compared with good golfers. Yet he speaks about his game very confidently, saying things like, For me, the golf swing is clearing the hips, getting them out of the way. I played golf in college and hip clearance never once came up. Its kind of like if Tom Brady said he throws the football well because he flicks his wrist right at the end.

The most confusing aspect of President Trump as golfer is that golf is the ultimate test of integrity and humility. There are no referees, so its on you to count your own strokes. Golfers develop a very strict honor code and a moral obligation to themselves and their playing partners to be 100 percent honest. And if golf is nothing else, it is humbling when you hit your ball into a lake, there is simply no denying it (fake water!) and no one to blame but yourself (liberal wind!).

But the president appears to have skipped those lessons, and he tends to behave like the one guy at the course who is hand-wedging the ball out of the trees. Golfers like this do exist, but no one wants to play with them. People like this get asked to play once and then never get invited back: Remember that guy who parked his golf cart on the greens? Yeah, the guy who left his Aerosmith ringtone on full blast and picked up every putt inside 10 feet? You dont have to be invited to play, though, when you own the course.

You can get an idea of the way the president manipulates truth by looking at how he talks about golf. In 2013, he tweeted, Just won The Club Championship at Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach lots of very good golfers, never easy to win a C.C. But he didnt win that year; Tom Roush did. Apparently, Mr. Trump won the senior division that year. No golfer in their right mind would confuse the club champion with the senior division winner.

Golf can be very addictive. There are so many different areas within the game, you almost have to obsess to be good. Addicted golfers often take two forms those who love to play the game, and those who love the escape.

I grew up playing in West Virginia, usually on public courses for $8 to $10 for 18 holes. There was always that one guy who was out there clearly avoiding a bad marriage or an unrewarding job. Playing with that guy, I would think, Doesnt he have four kids to raise? Golfs biggest strength is also its greatest weakness: You disappear into a different world for five hours a magical forest world where you drive your own buggy and send a tiny sphere at the sky.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump said, Im going to be working for you; Im not going to have time to play golf. But in his first year, he spent more than 90 days at a golf club. Its pretty clear to me hes turning to golf as an escape from a job he finds unrewarding. Which might not be the worst thing for him, or us.

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Donald Trump Makes Golf Look Bad - The New York Times