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How did George W. Bush's golfing frequency compare to other presidents like Barack Obama and Donald Trump?
Executive Summary
George W. Bush played 24 rounds of golf during his presidency and largely stopped playing after 2003, a figure that is far lower than Barack Obama’s documented totals — reported between 306 and 333 rounds — and substantially below counts attributed to Donald Trump in various periods, where reporting emphasizes frequent visits to golf properties and hundreds of course visits when including both terms and property trips. The underlying records and trackers disagree on exact tallies for Obama and Trump but consistently show Bush as a low-frequency presidential golfer, with multiple sources noting his wartime pause in play [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
1. Why Bush’s 24 rounds stand out: the wartime pause that changed a presidency’s pastime
George W. Bush’s recorded 24 rounds as president are repeatedly cited across independent fact summaries and presidential tallies, with contemporaneous accounts noting he stopped playing in 2003 out of deference to families of Americans killed in the Iraq War [1] [2]. This decision produced a dramatic discontinuity in presidential leisure habits: rather than a slow decline, Bush’s golfing essentially ceased mid-presidency, which is emphasized as a policy- and image-driven choice by multiple retrospectives and statistical roundups. The weight of these sources frames Bush’s low number not as an artifact of recordkeeping but as a deliberate behavioral shift that contrasts sharply with later presidents who maintained or increased golfing during their terms [1] [2].
2. Obama’s hundreds of rounds: two different tallies, same broad conclusion
Barack Obama’s golfing total is presented with some variance — 333 rounds in one widely cited sports tally and 306 rounds in another journalistic accounting — but both figures place Obama in the hundreds and average roughly 40 rounds per year across his tenure [4] [3]. Journalists and trackers interpret these differences as methodological choices: inclusion or exclusion of private outings, family games, or rounds tied to official events affects the count. Regardless of the exact number, the consensus across the cited sources is that Obama’s golfing frequency was orders of magnitude higher than Bush’s 24 rounds, and many outlets framed Obama’s play as a coping mechanism for presidential stress or as a visible target for political criticism over priorities and optics [4] [6].
3. Trump’s play and property visits: rising counts, different counting methods
Donald Trump’s golfing behavior is reported through a mix of White House records, property-visit logs, and independent trackers, producing counts that emphasize frequent visits to Trump-owned courses and significant increases in golf-related travel in his later terms. One 2025 analysis noted 99 visits to properties with 62 to golf courses in a six-month period, framing this as a marked rise from the first term and suggesting that raw visit counts can substantially elevate Trump’s apparent golf frequency [5]. Other records claim repeated weekend golf stretches and specific day counts; the divergence among trackers underscores that how one defines a “round” or “golf visit” materially changes comparisons with Bush and Obama [7] [8].
4. Counting rules matter: why tallies for presidents differ so widely
Comparisons between presidents hinge on methodological choices: whether counts include private family games, practice sessions, casual putting, visits to property where play may or may not have occurred, and whether outings before or after official hours are counted. The sources show explicit disagreement about inclusion criteria — one outlet lists Obama as 333 rounds whereas another reports 306 — and trackers of Trump’s post-2024 activity note that administration communications and confirmation standards affect what gets recorded publicly [4] [3] [8]. These discrepancies create room for political narratives: critics use higher totals to argue negligence, supporters emphasize context and workload, and some reporting calls out deliberate under- or over-counting as possible agenda-driven framing [6] [8].
5. Big-picture comparison and what’s omitted from many narratives
Putting the figures side-by-side, the unambiguous takeaways from the reviewed sources are that Bush’s 24 rounds are far fewer than Obama’s 300+ totals and that Trump’s golf-related property visits and round counts have been characterized as substantial and, in some reports, increasing over time [1] [4] [5]. What many accounts omit is consistent normalization for time in office, counting rules, and context such as security demands, public perception strategies, or the symbolic choices presidents make during wartime versus peacetime. Those omissions permit competing narratives: one portraying Bush as sober and restrained, another painting Obama as a prolific golfer who balanced respite with duty, and a third depicting Trump as a frequent club user whose counts are amplified by property-visit metrics [2] [3] [5].