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Which U.S. president logged the most golf rounds while in office and how is that measured?
Executive summary
Available reporting consistently names Woodrow Wilson as the U.S. president who logged the most golf rounds while in office — commonly cited as “over 1,200” rounds during his 1913–1921 tenure [1] [2] [3]. Measurement methods vary across sources: older tallies rely on contemporaneous accounts and memoirs of daily routines, while modern tallies for recent presidents use media tracking sites and public schedules to count course visits and rounds [4] [5] [6].
1. The historical leader: Woodrow Wilson’s huge tally
Multiple golf-focused and historical outlets repeat the same figure: Woodrow Wilson played more than 1,200 rounds of golf while president, often described as playing daily with a physician and persisting through bad weather, even painting balls to spot them in snow [1] [3] [4]. Those accounts come from early-20th-century anecdotes and biographical detail rather than modern scorecards; they treat Wilson’s routine (nine holes most weekdays, 18 on Saturdays) as the basis for the cumulative total [4].
2. How “most rounds” gets measured for older presidents
For Wilson and other early presidents, reporters and golf historians derive counts from diaries, staff recollections and contemporaneous newspaper descriptions of habits — for example, the claim that Wilson played regardless of weather and had secret-service escorts to the course [4]. That means the figure for Wilson is a reconstruction from narrative sources rather than a play-by-play record, and relies on how historians interpret frequency [3].
3. Modern presidents: data, trackers and different counting choices
For 20th‑ and 21st‑century presidents, measurement often combines press-observed outings, White House schedules and dedicated trackers. Sites like TrumpGolfCount/Trump Golf Tracker and related trackers estimate rounds or golf‑course visits for Donald Trump (estimates such as ~261–310 rounds or hundreds of course visits appear across trackers and secondary sources) by logging public appearances at courses and photographic evidence [7] [5] [4]. Statista and other summaries cite those trackers when comparing presidents [6].
4. Why counts differ: “visits” vs. “rounds” vs. “played”
Sources distinguish between visiting a golf property and actually playing a round; some trackers log every day a president was at a course, while others only count documented rounds [5] [6]. For example, reporting on Trump notes both “visits to Trump properties” and a separate estimated number of actual rounds played [5]. For earlier presidents, “round” can mean a short nine‑hole routine, whereas modern count standards usually presume 18 holes or a documented playing occasion — inconsistency that complicates cross‑era comparisons [4] [2].
5. Recent Presidential tallies cited in the media
Reporting and golf outlets have produced varied tallies for modern presidents: Dwight Eisenhower is frequently credited with about 800 rounds [6]. Barack Obama is often cited as having played roughly 333 rounds over eight years in some compilations [8]. Donald Trump’s first term appears in trackers as hundreds of visits with estimated rounds ranging from roughly 142 documented occasions to larger aggregated totals around 261–310 rounds depending on methodology [6] [7] [4] [5]. These numbers come from trackers and media counts rather than official White House statistics [6] [5].
6. Limits of the available reporting and open questions
Available sources do not provide a standardized, primary-government database of presidential golf rounds. Counts for Wilson rest on historical narrative rather than contemporaneous logs, and modern tallies depend on independent trackers with differing rules about what counts as a round or a visit [3] [5] [6]. Because methods differ, comparing “most golf” across eras is comparing reconstructed habits to photographic and schedule-based counts — not apples-to-apples [4] [5].
7. Bottom line for readers
Based on the sources provided, Woodrow Wilson is repeatedly identified as the single most‑golfing sitting president with “over 1,200” rounds as the standard citation [1] [2] [3]. However, that number is reconstructed from historical accounts; modern presidents’ totals are estimated using trackers that count visits and documented rounds differently. Any firm ranking depends on adopting a consistent counting rule — a standard that the current body of reporting has not uniformly applied [4] [5].