President Barack Obama was turned down for a tee time by golf courses booked solid over the Labor Day weekend.
NBC 4 New York reported that The Trump National Golf Club, the Winged Foot, and Willow Ridge declined the president's requests because they did not want to bump the advanced bookings of their high-paying members on one of the busiest gold weekends of the year. Some clubs' membership fees can exceed $100,000, and they did not want to shut down large portions of their courses for the security required for a presidential visit.
Obama was in Westchester County, New York, for Friday night fundraisers on Aug. 29 and the Saturday night wedding of MSNBC host Alex Wagner and White House chef Sam Kass.
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He reportedly wanted to play golf on the morning of Aug. 30, but the elite course could not accommodate him on just one or two day's notice. The only course that said it could have accommodated the president was the Fairview Country Club in Greenwich, Connecticut.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said on Aug. 28 that the president would return to the White House Friday night, and fly back for the wedding the next evening.
"He can sleep in his own bed, do a little work tomorrow, spend some time with his family and then travel back to New York tomorrow evening to attend a private event," he said.
According to The Washington Post, the president's golf habit has come under fire for its frequency, which some see as inappropriate. Those criticisms came to a head after Obama announced the beheading of journalist James Foley by Islamic militants, and then bee-lined to the golf course.
NBC noted that Obama was not the first president to be rebuffed when trying to get a last-minute tee time in Westchester, and that the king of Morocco was also denied a last-minute tee time the same weekend.
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