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Obama has golfed four times more than Bush did in eight years

Ryan Lovelace Contributor
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President Barack Obama played his hundredth round of golf on Sunday at the Beverly Country Club in Chicago, Ill.

Obama has played more rounds of golf in one term than President George W. Bush did in his entire eight years in office, ABC News reports. Bush played golf 24 times in eight years.

Bush told Politico in May 2008 why he stopped playing golf while in office.

“I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal,” Bush said. “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf.”

ABC News reports that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney criticized Obama’s golfing habits in April.

“I scratch my head at the capacity of the president to take four hours off on such a regular basis to go golfing,” Romney said. “I would think you could kind of suck it up for four years, particularly when the American people are out of work.”

Obama’s routine trips to the links may have been in an effort to move up Golf Digest’s presidential leaderboard, which had him ranked eighth or two spots behind Bush in January 2009.

And while 100 rounds of golf may sound excessive for a president who The Daily Mail notes never played golf before entering office, Woodrow Wilson played almost 1,200 rounds of golf, the most of any president.