How many rounds of golf did Barack Obama play as president 2009 2017?
Executive summary
Barack Obama played 333 rounds of golf during his eight years as president (2009–2017), a tally compiled and reported by CBS News correspondent and presidential tracker Mark Knoller and repeated by outlets including NBC Sports [1]. That works out to roughly 41 rounds per year and was widely discussed in the press as both a leisure habit and a political cudgel [1] [2].
1. The tally: 333 rounds — the headline figure
The most-cited, contemporaneous count of Obama’s presidential golf rounds is 333, a total first publicized by CBS News correspondent Mark Knoller and cited on outlets such as NBC Sports, which noted Obama’s final round was on December 31, 2016 while on vacation in Hawaii and that he played 46 rounds in his final year [1]. Golf publications such as Golf Digest also analyzed his play frequency during his presidency, reinforcing that his golf habit was substantial and measurable [2].
2. How the number was compiled and why reporters rely on it
Mark Knoller’s tally aggregated photographed and reported outings, trips to courses, and on-the-record White House schedules; that methodology is the basis for the 333 count cited in multiple pieces [1]. Golf outlets and databases independently crunched the same public records and photographic evidence to corroborate that Obama played frequently, which is why the figure circulated consistently across sports and news sites [2].
3. Putting 333 rounds in historical context
Although 333 rounds is sizeable — about 41 rounds per year — it does not make Obama the most golfing president in history; press accounts compare him to Dwight D. Eisenhower and earlier presidents who reportedly played far more, with Eisenhower often estimated in the hundreds to over 800 rounds depending on the source [3] [4]. Golf writers cautioned that comparing eras is imperfect because media scrutiny, travel patterns, and White House staffing for presidential leisure changed dramatically over decades [2].
4. Political reaction: criticism, defense, and media framing
Obama’s golf outings drew predictable political fire when they coincided with crises or tragedies, with critics using his rounds to question judgment; Reuters documented one such episode when Obama played 18 holes shortly after delivering remarks about the execution of journalist James Foley, a juxtaposition that sparked bipartisan commentary [5]. Defenders and some reporters pushed back, noting that presidential work and downtime have always coexisted and that schedules showed many games occurred on weekends or vacations, minimizing conflicts with official duties [1] [2].
5. What the number shows — and what it doesn’t
The 333-round figure is a useful empirical shorthand for assessing how often Obama golfed while in office, but it does not measure how many hours he worked during or around those outings, the substantive content of meetings on the course, or whether specific rounds affected policy decisions; those finer judgments require different evidence than counting rounds [1]. Media outlets that highlighted the number often had implicit agendas — sports outlets celebrate presidential engagement with golf while political outlets use the tally to question priorities — so readers should treat the statistic as descriptive rather than normative [2] [5].
6. Reporting limits and source transparency
The 333 total rests on public reporting and photographic records compiled by journalists such as Mark Knoller and amplified by outlets including NBC Sports and Golf Digest; however, there is no single official White House “scorecard” released as a centralized dataset, so the figure represents the best publicly available tally rather than an absolute, government-certified ledger [1] [2]. Absent other official counts, reputable news compilers remain the primary source for this specific statistic.