Don't Ask What I Shot: How Eisenhower's Love of Golf Helped Shape 1950s America

Historian Lewis (Considerable Passions) takes an extremely thorough if not always entertaining approach to a combined study of golf in America and Eisenhower's stamp on history. She includes fascinating stories of how during WWII General Eisenhower ordered an air force pilot to drop a bomb on a new army golf course in Italy to quickly dig a hole for a sand trap, and how as president he took to the links with not only golf clubs but a "doomsday" briefcase that held the codes to launch a nuclear attack. Eisenhower used golf as a way to relax from stress and as recuperative exercise after his first heart attack in 1955. Lewis explores how Eisenhower often directed national policy from fairways and clubhouses, including Little Rock's Central High School integration standoff and the response to the American spy plane crash in the Soviet Union. Lewis's narrative sometimes lags with an abundance of unnecessary details such as frequent lists of names of Eisenhower's golfing partners. She ultimately ranks Eisenhower with Bobby Jones and Arnold Palmer (both of whom the president befriended) as well as Tiger Woods as the most influential figures in popularizing the game in America. (May)