In recent years, the importance of the relationship between sports and the presidency has been easy for all to see via mainstream news outlets and all manner of social media. For example, in a 2016 edition of the Tampa Bay Times, columnist David Whitley wrote the following telling lines:

In essence, there are two directions the media usually approaches it – first, through a president’s own skills and athletic prowess, and, second, through their interest in sports as a spectator or fan. Across both Barack Obama and Donald Trump’s presidencies, these sporting lenses through which to view the presidency were employed with great frequency.

During Obama’s first term, the press often remarked on the president’s connection to basketball. For example, in early 2009 Obama played a game at the University of Chicago that was reviewed by a panel of NBA All-Stars on CNN. Hall of Famer Magic Johnson described him as “smart at the game.” At the same time, he became known as the nation’s “basketball fan-inchief,” watching numerous games during his time in office, though admittedly this habit did not go entirely without criticism. Indeed, by the start of his second term, reports of a different tone were noting just how often the president was playing his other favorite game. CBS reporter Mark Knoller reckoned that Obama played more than one hundred games of golf during his first term. For some, his sportiness and fandom was appealing, while for others it was a distraction from the business of running the country.

Donald Trump has often been compared with and most often contrasted to his predecessor, yet the sense that he also played too much golf was a theme often picked up by the press. For columnist Windsor Mann, critics of Trump were missing a trick when criticizing the president for taking to the links: “The more time he spends playing golf, the less time he has to play president.”