The Marine One helicopter did not touch down at the Bethpage Black course in New York for the US Open last weekend, perhaps because it would have sunk in the mud. But, five months into his job, it is now clear that Barack Obama is the latest presidential golf nut, forever sneaking away from the White House bubble, wife and daughters to pursue a singular passion.

For all H.L. Mencken’s famous abjuration, “If I had my way, any man guilty of golf would be ineligible for any office of trust”, it is what presidents, and countless other politicians, do. (Joe Biden, once an eight handicap, has been spotted on a Washington driving range of late, perhaps after breaking all the windows in his Naval Observatory home.) Their scores, naturally, are never released, for national security reasons – and certainly not after Pyongyang announced Kim Jong-il had shot 38 under par in his first and only round.