Don't Ask What I Shot How Eisenhower's Love of Golf Helped Shape 1950s America

"Any time you have a person in the position of President Eisenhower, who was so enthusiastic about golf and had the press paying attention to his many excursions on the golf course, it was going to make people aware of the game and how much he enjoyed playing it." --Arnold Palmer "Don't Ask What I Shot is a fascinating examination of one of golf's pivotal decades, and the remarkable president who did more to popularize the game than any other in history." -Mark Frost, award-winning author of Grand Slam and The Greatest Game Ever Played "Whatever remained to be done to remove the last traces of the average man's carefully nurtured prejudice against a game originally linked with the wealthy and aloof was done by President Eisenhower." --Herbert Warren Wind, renowned golf writer On January 24, 1953, four days after his inauguration, the New York Times reported that President Dwight D. Eisenhower had been spotted on the White House lawn practicing his short irons in the direction of the Washington Monument. This image of "The Golfing General" was one that the American public quickly became accustomed to, as Eisenhower is said to have played nearly 800 rounds during the course of his two-term presidency. The public's awareness of Eisenhower's obsession with golf led directly to the sport's mid-century surge in popularity. In Don't Ask What I Shot, noted historian Catherine M. Lewis offers a unique alternate portrait of Ike and this watershed period in American history. "Golf . . . is a sport in which the whole American family can participate--fathers and mothers, sons and daughters alike. It offers healthy respite from daily toil, refreshment of body and mind." --President Dwight D. Eisenhower Considered the great equalizer, the game of golf has the ability to bring even presidents down to their knees. Dwight D. Eisenhower knew that truth better than any other. Known fondly as Ike, the popular World War II hero and esteemed thirty-fourth president is said to have played nearly 800 rounds of golf during his two-term presidency. He befriended the game's most beloved players, including Arnold Palmer, Ben Hogan, and Byron Nelson, and was the subject of hundreds of golf jokes and cartoons. All an enterprising journalist needed in the 1950s was a pencil and a respectable rendering of a golf ball. Ike's obsession with golf also provided easy fodder for critics who accused him of spending more time rolling a little white ball down a green fairway than attending to the affairs of state. Yet Eisenhower prevailed in the face of such criticism, enjoying widespread public support and high approval ratings as he grappled with tough issues facing the country in the tumultuous postwar period. Author Catherine Lewis paints a complex portrait of a president portrayed by his opponents as a doddering old man who cared more about his scorecard than the nation's welfare. By his second term as president, Ike's devotion to the game harkened back to a bygone era in which golf's moneyed culture remained insulated from the race and class struggles transforming post-WWII society. Eisenhower was a presidential paradox, and Don't Ask What I Shot tells the story of what Ike's golf game symbolized during this enigmatic decade.Lewis, Catherine M. is the author of 'Don't Ask What I Shot How Eisenhower's Love of Golf Helped Shape 1950s America', published 2007 under ISBN 9780071485708 and ISBN 0071485708.