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Rating: 
Summary: For Presidents, "only the golf course says no."
Review: Author Van Natta, a New York Times correspondent and 100+ golfer, believes (like most golf-lovers everywhere) that you can learn everything you ever wanted to know about someone by watching him/her play golf. He takes it one step further, however, finding golf particularly revealing of a President's personality and values. "Nearly every person in a president's privileged life says yes...Only the golf course says no."Accumulating fascinating anecdotes from his research into the golf games of the Presidents, and combining these with his own experience as a reporter, which includes more than two years spent covering President Clinton, he shows how a President's golf game reflects the inner man. Fourteen of the last seventeen Presidents were golfers to one degree or another, and no reader, whether a golfer or not, will be disappointed in the unique insights and revealing anecdotes the author gives us of Presidents at leisure. What makes this book different from so many others, is that Van Natta is a real writer, carefully choosing his quotations (including on-course remarks), narrating anecdotes so that they have real climaxes, and emphasizing details that are so telling that no reader will fail to see parallels between the man's golf and his Presidential administration. Though JFK is adjudged the best player of the fourteen, with an "effortless swing," few citizens knew how addicted he was to the game, something he kept secret because, after Eisenhower's administration, golf was considered a political liability. (Ike left cleat marks in the floor leading from the Oval Office to the practice green outside his window.) Ike, JFK, FDR (who was a passionate golfer until he was stricken with polio at age 39), and Gerald Ford are considered the purists of the game, and none of them were ever caught lying about a score, using mulligans (extra shots off the tee), or tossing the ball out of the woods. Not surprisingly, Bill Clinton is considered among the White House's "most polished and prolific golf cheats." As one observer noted, "You don't have to subpoena Whitewater documents. Just watch him on the golf course." He elevated the mulligan to such a new level that it was referred to as a "billigan." Nixon, LBJ, and Warren G. Harding, were also considered cheats. With a final section devoted to the Bushes, father and son, Van Natta closes his analysis of Presidential golf games with particular panache, since the Bushes so often play together. The book is pure delight, providing a unique take on Presidents, who, on the golf course, face the same challenges as the rest of us, with some of them responding more gracefully to the challenges than others. Mary Whipple
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Summary: Light History For Everyone
Review: Dick Van Natta Jr. offers 14 mini-biographies of our Presidents in his work, "First Off The Tee", that are all engaging and fun to read. His book is well researched, documented, and could provide a catalyst for further study of these holders of the Oval Office. He does not suggest this is a serious study of political science or even character profiling of the men he writes about. Golf has played an interesting role with many of our chief executives since its introduction to the US. One president, Ulysses S. Grant, happily swung a club only outside of his country. Were this chief executive to have played on a regular basis at home, he easily would have taken the top spot as the most miserable golfer to ever occupy The White House. The author traces the game from its start when it was a little known activity, to its growing stages when it became a political liability to play, to when a President on a golf course is no longer a negative but expected, as the game has grown in popularity. The author credits players like Tiger Woods for dramatically expanding the games audience. He also documents one President who built hundreds of courses and likely would have been the finest Presidential player before disease took away his ability to even walk. The historical record is also corrected with the President who outplayed everyone including Eisenhower, and other Presidents who would play in the fog before they would risk a photograph being taken. One other President courted and played the game with the woman who would become his wife, and is believed to have assumed many presidential responsibilities when his health failed. This is not a heavy-handed weight of a book to be lugged around and plowed through. It is readable, accessible, and has moments of laughter. All History need not be written with such ponderous prose so as to be a chore for many to read. I think many will pursue more traditional biographies of these Presidents after being introduced to them by Mr. Van Natta Jr.
Rating: 
Summary: My fellow Americans...
Review: First Off the Tee is a very entertaining book and its filled with humor page after page. I found the book to be more than a sports book or golf book, and am not sure that it belongs solely in the sports section. Non-fiction or history seems more appropriate. Van Natta reveals our past presidents characters by showing how they conducted themselves on the golf course. The book trully examines the men behind the most powerful job in the world and humanizes them in the process. A very well writen book and a must read for all Americans.
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Summary: Who says you can't investigate and entertain
Review: For years I have reached for the New York Times whenever I saw Don Van Natta's byline. As one of the nation's top investigative reporters, his stories were always incrediblly well written and chock full of insider information that most of the times his subjects would rather not reveal. He found out and reported facts but never forgot the importance of color and detail and good old fashioned story telling. First off the Tee combines these traits into a highly entertaining book that brings these Presidents and the pasttime they share with millions of Americans to life. I gave it to my husband for his birthday and he read it in a weekend but not until I had finished it. I work in politics and he loves golf and we both loved the book. You can't do better than that.
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Summary: Great Gift For Golfer
Review: I don't golf. Never did. Never will. I think golf is borrrring.... but, I bought this book for a guy who loves golfing. Absolutely loves it. He claims to be good at it. Well, he loved the book. He was laughing when he told me about how much he enjoyed it. I think he really appreciated getting the book, especially getting it from someone who doesn't know a thing about golf! I recommend this as a gift for anyone who golfs. Especially someone who would enjoy the history of the presidential golfers.
Rating:
Summary: Great Gift For Golfer
Review: I don't golf. Never did. Never will. I think golf is borrrring.... but, I bought this book for a guy who loves golfing. Absolutely loves it. He claims to be good at it. Well, he loved the book. He was laughing when he told me about how much he enjoyed it. I think he really appreciated getting the book, especially getting it from someone who doesn't know a thing about golf! I recommend this as a gift for anyone who golfs. Especially someone who would enjoy the history of the presidential golfers.
Rating:
Summary: golf widow
Review: Interesting angle. Using the sport and game
of golf as the foundation to add insights and discuss the Presidents who played it. Author Van Natta Jr. brought forth an original avenue to bring a topic that is commonly written about (presidents) to light. Golf, the ever-increasing mainstream sport to the American public, is no longer stereotyped (falsely) that it's an elitist sport to play. In "First Off The Tee," there are many interesting facts about the habits of some of the commanders-in-chiefs that hit the greens. Bill Clinton took so many mulligan's the author called
them "Billigans." He scored himself in the low 80s, similar to his idol JFK, but he literally took over 200 swings. Clinton played loosely with the rules, at times bending them to conform to his ends. Can the phenomena of how a person plays golf be taken and applied to political and administrative behaviour? Psycho-social analysis? Perhaps a dissertation has started somewhere regarding this. One President drank booze while golfing during prohibition. He also gambled on a every game. John F. Kennedy was an avid golpher, and fairly decent one at that,
getting scores in the low 80s. But he did keep the fact that he
played the game secret from the public. Gerald Ford played amateur tourneys and pinged the
bystanders in the crowd from time to time. The author played with the likes of Clinton and George W.
Bush. G. W. Bush could play through 18 holes in an hour and a half, while Clinton took six hours. (He liked
to talk a lot more.) In the past, Presidents didnt' want to be
photographed on the greens. Today it's acceptable, and
perhaps even expected. 14 mini-biographies highlighting the lighter side of the Execs as men and the sport of golf. Very interesting.
Rating:
Summary: A Hole in One
Review: This book represents a great idea, perfectly executed. Analyzing presidential personalities and styles through the game of golf is a novel, intelligent approach: it provides a tidy, concise method for making observations about the presidents, and it allows the author to deliver insights and information in an incredibly entertaining way. You don't have to know a lot about golf to find this well-written, well-organized book entertaining; you just have to have some curiosity about the men who have led the United States. Many of them, Van Natta smartly realized, liked their time on the fairway, and so he visits them there, and golf becomes the metaphor for so much more.
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