Ike: "Golf was essential to his daily routine."

Barack Obama played his first round of golf since August but after reading Evan Thomas' golf.com excerpt from Ike's Bluff, the President has a long way to go when it comes to matching the Oval Office's greatest golf nut.

We all know about President Eisenhower's 800 rounds, but there was all this...

Golf was essential to his daily routine. When he awakened in the morning, he limbered up by taking a few swings in his bedroom with his favorite eight-iron.

He sometimes swung the club when dictating to Mrs. Whitman. At 5:00 p.m. he would rise from Teddy Roosevelt’s old Navy Department desk in the Oval Office, put on his golf shoes, and head out the door, leaving tiny spike holes in the floorboards. On the Ellipse, the greensward stretching south from the White House toward the Washington Monument, he would practice fairway approach shots. His faithful valet (or as he was known in military parlance, his striker), Sergeant John Moaney, would shag the balls while tourists peered through the iron fence.