How many rounds of golf did each recent U.S. president play while in office?

1. What the sources show about recent presidents’ round counts

Barack Obama is repeatedly reported at roughly 333 rounds during his eight years in office in multiple pieces of reporting and compilations about presidential golf ^{[1] [7] [2] [6]}. Donald Trump’s golf activity is tracked differently depending on the outlet: TrumpGolfCount and similar trackers logged 285 visits to golf clubs and produced evidence of golf being played on about 142 occasions through late 2020, while some later golf‑industry pieces and blogs assert totals such as “nearly 300 rounds” during his presidency—demonstrating divergent tallies rather than a single agreed figure ^{[5] [8] [9] [6]}. Joe Biden’s presidency is described in the supplied reporting as not being as golf‑focused, with coverage citing frequent Delaware trips but offering no authoritative count of rounds played while in office in these sources ^[7].

2. Why published totals disagree: methodology, definitions and partial trackers

Disagreement in round counts stems from different definitions (daytime “visits” to golf clubs vs. fully documented 18‑hole rounds), trackers that rely on public schedules or press reports, and estimates that extrapolate when a visit likely included golf ^{[5] [8] [9]}. For example, TrumpGolfCount and similar sites count club visits and use public schedules to infer when golf occurred, producing both “visits” and “played occasions,” while other outlets repeat higher round figures reported by golf‑industry sites without exposing their verification methods ^{[8] [5] [6]}. That means a headline figure like “nearly 300 rounds” for a president can reflect different underlying data than a conservative count that requires photographic or schedule evidence of an actual round ^{[5] [6]}.

3. Historical context: some presidents played far more than modern trackers credit

Longer historical estimates place earlier 20th‑century presidents much higher: Dwight Eisenhower is commonly credited with roughly 800+ rounds while in office, and Woodrow Wilson and other earlier leaders are sometimes reported at 1,000+ rounds in historical retrospectives, though those figures come from retrospective compilations and club histories rather than contemporaneous, systematic tracking ^{[2] [3] [10] [11]}. Richard Nixon is frequently estimated in golf coverage at about 800–900 rounds during his time in office, a level well above modern multipoint trackers for recent presidents ^[4]. These historical totals underscore that presidential golf is a long‑standing pastime but that cross‑era comparisons are fraught because of different recordkeeping and public scrutiny ^{[3] [10]}.

4. Bottom line and limitations of the reporting

The best‑supported numeric claims in the supplied reporting are Obama ≈333 rounds and tracker‑based counts for Trump showing ~142 verified played occasions through late 2020 and larger visit totals that some outlets cite; other round totals—“nearly 300” for Trump, Eisenhower’s 800+, Nixon’s 800–900, and Wilson’s 1,000+—appear across golf‑industry and historical pieces but reflect mixed methodologies and retrospective estimates rather than a single standardized record ^{[1] [5] [9] [6] [3] [4] [10]}. The supplied sources do not provide a rigorously compiled, comparable table for “each recent president,” and they offer no authoritative round total for Joe Biden within these materials, so any definitive ranking beyond those cited would require additional, consistent primary tracking or official logs not present in the provided reporting ^{[7] [8]}.