From the Washington Post:

After months of public anticipation [really?], President Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) have settled on a date to play golf together: Saturday, June 18....

Boehner is widely considered the much better player, having started playing when he was in his 20s. Later in life, as a successful businessman, he joined Wetherington Golf and Country Club outside Cincinnati. Obama didn't really become a regular player until he became president, when he started using golf outings to maintain a level of normalcy to escape the intense life inside the presidential bubble. Of late, however, Obama has been improving his game as Boehner's has deteriorated.

According to Golf Digest, Obama is now a 17-handicap. That means that he usually shoots about a 90 on a course with an overall par of 72.

Not really. Handicaps are calculated, or at least they were 17 years ago when I wrote an article for Golf magazine on them, using only the better half of your last 20 rounds. And the handicap makes up only a majority of the gap (85%?) — the idea is that the lower handicap golfer should win the majority of bets (because he's better), but at least it should be interesting.

If somebody lists their handicap without a decimal point, they probably don't maintain an actual handicap.

Boehner's handicap has drifted up from about 5 or 6, before he became the GOP leader in 2007, to an 8.5, according to an official handicap site. Boehner has not broken 80 at his home course, Wetherington, since last May - at which point his campaign for Republicans to win the majority in the November midterms shifted into high gear.

On the other hand, the Christian Science Monitor reported in January that Boehner "hit the links some 120 times last year."

That's a lot. Considering that the guy lives in Washington and Ohio, that means about four months of the year are too cold for golf, and it rains a lot the rest of the year, so he must have been playing golf over half the days when the weather is reasonable. I'm glad he's got a job that's not too demanding.

Guys always tell you that you should play golf to become rich and powerful, but my sneaking suspicion is that a lot of guys become rich and powerful in order to play more golf.