[PHOTO: Chip Somodevilla]

American president Joe Biden doesn’t play nearly as much golf as his two immediate predecessors from the Oval Office, but he’s no hack either. He has memberships at Wilmington Country Club and Fieldstone Country Club in Delaware, though his current handicap index of 6.7 should be considered a bit “soft” since he hasn’t posted a score since 2018. Seems he’s been a little busy.

The beauty of being the US president is that you get to meet the world’s top golfers on occasion and sometimes receive flattering titles. One of those honours has arrived for Biden, who has accepted the invitation to be the honorary chairman of the 2022 Presidents Cup competition between the US and International teams that will be played from September 22-25 at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, North Carolina.

In a press release issued overnight, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, whose organisation stages the Presidents Cup, thanked Biden for his participation and said, “The Presidents Cup has a long-standing tradition of hosting world leaders, spanning several decades and many countries across all party lines, and the addition of President Biden to that list of men and women will help promote and grow the event worldwide and further our efforts in unifying people through the game of golf.”

All seven of the most recent past US presidents have participated in the Presidents Cup, spanning from Gerald Ford in 1996 to Donald Trump in 2017. There was a particularly memorable scene in ’17 at Liberty National where George W. Bush, Barrack Obama and Bill Clinton appeared together. Trump did not join them, though he later became the first sitting president to personally award the trophy to the winning American side.