President Obama played golf on Sunday with Tiger Woods. But no news organization or reporters who traveled with the President to Florida were able to witness even a fleeting glance of that golf pairing at an exclusive golf club near Palm Beach.
It left reporters aggravated, especially after the White House seemingly indicated that nothing would happen early on Sunday because of cool weather in the Sunshine State.
"We're told that POTUS doesn't plan to leave his golfing compound today, therefore at 9:30 AM we have a lid.
On a footnote, the region here is under a cold snap (by local standards): 46F, "wind chill advisory". Temps are not expected to get above 60F in the afternoon."
That was the first pool report of the day by Tangi Quemener, the White House Correspondent for Agence France-Presse, who drew Sunday pool duties.
That first Pool report by Quemener seemed to indicate that the President would not be doing much on Sunday - that is usually what a "lid" means for the press corps; but a few hours later a reporter for Golf Digest began tweeting that Mr. Obama would be playing golf with Tiger Woods.
By early afternoon, Quemener and the other members of the Pool - the reporters tasked to cover the President while he is traveling - were still at their hotel in Port St. Lucie, Florida, about twenty minutes away.
"Forwarding this update from Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest: "The President played golf today with USTR Ron Kirk, Jim Crane and Tiger Woods."
That was soon followed by the third pool report of the day:
"We got confirmation at 1:45 PM that POTUS had been hitting the links with Tiger Woods inside the "Floridian" golf compound, 20 minutes away from the pool hotel. Your pool has been aware since this morning that a reporter, Tim Rosaforte, had been tweeting and talking on the Golf Channel about the POTUS/Woods game from inside the compound. Still officially under a lid, we decided to assemble and at 2:10 PM we logged a request to the White House for access to the President's game for a photo-op, like this administration and previous ones have granted in the past. We were told that we were free to travel to the Floridian but wouldn't get access to POTUS. After some back and forth, our handlers finally arrived at 4:17 PM and our bus was on the move quickly afterwards. We reached the Floridian's gates at 4:37. We're holding outside the compound and we're told that the President is not moving out of the Floridian and that the lid is still in place."
In other words, no pictures of the President and Tiger by major news organizations. Presumably someone snapped a few photos, but not from the White House Pool.
It was duly noted in the final White House Pool report of the day by Quemener:
"At 6:15 PM, with a lid still firmly in place and the sun setting over The Floridian, the pool decided to head back to their hotel, reached at 6:35.
Forwarding a statement from the White House Correspondents Association's president Ed Henry, following today's developments:
"Speaking on behalf of the White House Correspondents Association, I can say a broad cross section of our members from print, radio, online and TV have today expressed extreme frustration to me about having absolutely no access to the President of the United States this entire weekend. There is a very simple but important principle we will continue to fight for today and in the days ahead: transparency."
The White House released its own statement, from Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest:
"The press access granted by the White House today is entirely consistent with the press access offered for previous presidential golf outings. It's also consistent with the press access promised to the White House Press Corps prior to arrival in Florida on Friday evening."
While I am not a White House correspondent, I know enough about the ground rules for Presidential golf to say that usually we get a couple of pictures of the President and his playing partners when he is playing golf away from Washington, D.C.
In other words, when he goes to play golf on a normal weekend at the White House, the Pool reporters and photographers rarely get to see him.
But when he played while on vacation at Martha's Vineyard, there were a few photos - you can search the internet and find those quite easily.
So, I'm not sure the White House is really providing the same access for "previous presidential golf outings."
But there isn't much the press corps can do about it, other than write stories to highlight the restrictive nature of this weekend's coverage of President Obama.
One side note - during the day on Sunday, I was keeping tabs on this story, and told my four year old son what was happening.
"Dad," he said with a serious look on his face about a Tiger-Obama pairing, "turn on the TV and let's watch."
If only it had been that easy.
