Don’t Ask What I Shot

How Eisenhower’s Love of Golf Helped Shape 1950’s America

By Catherine M. Lewis

For President Dwight D. Eisenhower, golf was a blessing and a curse. For us, it provides a picture window view to a complex decade that has shaped the American landscape to this day. In Don’t Ask What I Shot (April, 2007), Catherine M. Lewis looks at the 1950s through Eisenhower and his love of golf, and what she discovers is remarkable:

Ø Without Ike’s stand on racial desegregation, some of the best golfers in the world, including Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh, might never have picked up a club or competed on the PGA Tour.

Ø Ike’s public love affair with golf fed post-war America’s pre-occupation with health and fitness, which is now a full-blown national obsession.

Ø Similarly, Ike is responsible for the boom in construction of golf courses and country clubs, which became the hub of the new leisure class and suburban society.

Ø Ike’s use of the golf course as an extension of the Oval Office made country clubs new sites of power.

Without the advantage of hindsight, however, Ike’s avid pursuit of his favorite game was a mixed blessing. While the national crisis over school desegregation in Little Rock made headlines from Bombay to Johannesburg in 1957, political pundits of the day concluded that Ike cared more about his golf score than the country’s troubles. Indeed, he played more than 800 rounds during his presidency. Pictures of the President tooling around Augusta National Golf Club often illustrated front-page newspaper articles detailing high-level discussions about U.S. policy in the Middle East to H-bomb testing.

Today, presidents carefully monitor their physical fitness routines as they relate to their images and popularity standings. In his day, Eisenhower was criticized for his embrace of what for some was an elitist sport, while others applauded him for participating in an activity that could be enjoyed by people of all ages. After his heart attack, the fact that he regularly played golf became an asset in his reelection campaign, demonstrating his overall fitness and ability to continue the job as president. Along the way, he deliberated some of the greatest challenges of his administration, including the U-2 spy plane incident (1960), with a golf club in his hand.

Don’t Ask What I Shot tells the story of golf as popularized by a president and how it came to function as a dual symbol of progress and provincialism; laissez faire crisis management and self-reliant control; elitism and equality. What’s more, the book is a unique, never-before-told biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower, a president whose legacy is forever intertwined with the game of golf and the impact it has on our lives today.

About the Author:

Dr. Catherine Lewis is an associate professor of history and at Kennesaw State University. She is the author of six books, including Bobby Jones and the Quest for the Grand Slam. In addition to her work at KSU, she is a curator and special projects coordinator at the Atlanta History Center, having curated more than thirty exhibitions, including the award-winning Down the Fairway with Bobby Jones. Dr. Lewis holds a B.A. in English and History from Emory University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Iowa.

DON’T ASK WHAT I SHOT:

How Eisenhower’s Love of Golf Helped Shape 1950s America

Catherine M. Lewis

McGraw-Hill * ISBN 0071485708 * Price $24.95 Hardcover

Publication Date: May, 2007

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