During last year’s presidential election campaign, one of Joe Biden’s strongest arguments to voters was that he was not Donald Trump.
After having the popular pastime of the ‘former guy’ on Saturday during the first trip to a golf course of his presidency, he finds out that he is still not.
“The track record was still intact,” Biden said told reporters after a seemingly overwhelming round with an adviser, Steve Ricchetti, and his late son, Beau, father-in-law Ron Olivere at the Wilmington Country Club in Delaware.
Unlike golf-loving Trump, whose frequent trips to the fairways during his only tenure were only linked to his exaggerations and exuberant lies about his accomplishments, Biden has never said he is an avid follower or prolific player of the game. .
According to the Wilmington New Journal, he and his wife Jill have been members of the club in his hometown since 2014, and it is reported that in 2016 they had a handicap of ten.
But in the same year, when Trump took office and Biden overwhelmed his own political future, he told then-Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny: “If you want to keep your handicap in golf, you must not become president.”
During an average round with Kenny on the home court at Castlebar, County Mayo, Biden was asked how his golf game was going. “Fortunately, politics is going better,” the then US vice president replied.
Since then, Biden has been a player more and more and has not visited a golf course since Saturday since his inauguration on January 20th.
At this stage of his own presidency, Trump has already recorded 19 separate visits to golf courses, mostly at resorts he owns, such as Trump International in West Palm Beach, Florida, and the Trump National course in Potomac, Virginia, according to the website. trumpgolfcount.com.
After promising voters he would be too busy playing, Trump picked up about 300 rounds of golf in 150 visits during his four years in office, costing taxpayers nearly $ 146 million.
Trump, meanwhile, has been a fierce critic of the golfing habits of Obama, another president with a penchant for the game, who in 2016 recognized an honest 13 ‘as a handicap. According to sports blog SBNation, Trump, who claims a 2.8 handicap, has attacked Obama on Twitter at least 27 times.
However, a fact-checking by CNN last year found that Trump played much more frequently than his predecessor, including during Memorial Day weekend while deaths in the U.S. in the coronavirus were 100,000.