Hail to the Cheat
Natta, Don Van Jr.
Hail to the Cheat! First Off the Tee Presidential Hackers, Duffers, and Cheaters from Taft to Bush BY DON VAN NATTA, JR. PublicAffairs/288 pages/526.00 It depends how you define par! Byron...
...Forever, right...
...And I had just shot an 80 in Syracuse on a hard course...
...Clinton breaks this rule on almost every hole...
...Coolidge, Nixon, and Johnson are all suitably amusing, but for SPECTATOR readers the high point will be the extended account of an actual round that Van Natta—a confessed 100-plus handicap golfer—played last summer with our most recent former president...
...I just play what the rules are...
...during the playof a hole...
...Is he convinced that he never shaves a single stroke off his game, ever...
...I just play what the rules are," Clinton says, shaking his head...
...Byron York started the ball rolling in the pages seven years ago, but now the formidable New York Times investigative reporter Don Van Natta has done a must-buy book for students of our nation's highest office...
...How far have I got...
...Have playing partners been so generous for so long that when they insist his third practice tee shot is actually his first ball, he believes them...
...They're the best in the world, and this book—the latest in the long-running Day in the Life series—is a lasting, lavish tribute...
...Ross] Perot got 19 percent of the vote [in 1992] and nobody could get a majority that JUNE/JULY 2003 • THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 75 even though I had won an overwhelming electoral victory that I was not legitimate...
...I just don't understand it...
...Before I get a chance to pursue these questions with him, Clinton climbs out of the cart and looks at one of his golf balls lying about 210 yards from the hole...
...So they sort of wanted to keep writing those stories...
...It was then I wondered: Has Clinton deluded himself...
...The look says: Van Natta, you were one of 'em...
...he asks me...
...I asked the president why Bob Dole tried to make an issue of his honesty on the golf course in the 1996 campaign...
...They had some friends in the press because I was the designated fall guy in '92, and I didn't fall...
...Well the Republicans did it because it was part of their strategy to deny my legitimacy," he says...
...The penalty for breaking Rule 7-2 is two strokes...
...When I first jump into the golf cart, he asks me where I was born, where I went to college, and how long I have worked at the Times...
...It's weird...
...Rule 7-2 of the United States Golf Association's Rules of Golf says, "A player shall not play a practice stroke...
...He said he saw my swing and I couldn't play that well...
...Bill Clinton blames it all on the Republicans...
...Here's a taste—fore...
...But he is too much of a gentleman to say anything about it...
...Didn't he fail to break 90 just a month earlier at the World Celebrity Golf Championship outside Stockholm, where Clinton proclaimed his performance was "terrible" because he had eight 3-putts...
...OVER THE TOP A Day in the Life of the United States Armed Forces Harpereellins Publishers/256 pages/S40.00 T kink of it as the ultimate in embedded journalism-125 of the world's top photogrpahers fanned out around the world last October (talk about timing) to capture the heart and soul of the people who keep the rest of us safely out of harm's way...
...Doesn't he always fail to break 90 at tournaments where the officials strictly forbid mulligans, not to mention Billigans...
...They just decided from the day I was elected to just keep attacking me...
...Instead, he goes on to discuss Mark Grobmyer, his friend in Arkansas who routinely took the do-over shots...
...These are the men, the women (yes), and the machines that went on to make the Three-Week War a, well, three-week war...
...You do take a lot of practice balls," I tell him...
...When it is my turn to pose a question, I ask him about his mulligan philosophy and why he thinks so many people were critical of his golf game...
...Clinton is absolutely convinced that's how this mulligan criticism got started...
...7 6 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR • JUNE/JULY 2003...
...They decided that they would say because [H...
...DeLay attacked me," he says of Congressman DeLay, the deeply partisan House Republican whip...
...And I think I sent him the newspaper article with the pro who went around with me saying, you know, sometimes he hit more than one ball when I was giving him lessons, but he always counted his real score...
...I ride with Clinton as he drives, his arm draped on the chair back behind me...
...He shoots me a sideways glance, a slightly raised eyebrow here that I almost miss...
...He speaks candidly and openly, never shirking a single nettlesome question about his playing practices or his rule bending...
Vol. 36 • June 2003 • No. 3
