Obama and woman go golfing (just like Adam Sandler and Bob Barker)

President Obama was joined today by a female staffer on the golf course. This marks the first time he's golfed with a woman since becoming president.

By Jimmy Orr / October 25, 2009

President Obama (not pictured) and chief domestic policy advisor Melody Barnes (not pictured) went golfing today. Barnes is the first female to join Obama on the golf course since he became president.

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This should take some sting out of the earlier criticism.

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President Obama went golfing this afternoon. No, he wasn't being criticized for not golfing enough. He was getting some flak for not including women in his White House basketball games.

So what'd he do? Asked a female staffer to join him for 18 holes. A big deal? Maybe, but only because since becoming president his golfing partners have all been men.

That all changed today as the president's chief domestic policy adviser – Melody Barnes – joined him.

As for the game itself, there's no play-by-play. The pool reporters aren't like that tall Frankenstein-like guy in the movie "Happy Gilmore." They can't follow the president on every hole.

Further, let's hope their outing was more harmonious than the pairing of Adam Sandler and Bob Barker in that same movie. Fans of the cult classic will remember that everything started off fine between the two in the Pro-Am tournament. But relations quickly soured when Gilmore (Sandler) couldn't find his swing due to heckling by an obnoxious fan.

By the time the duo hit the back nine, tempers flared and fisticuffs commenced. It all crescendoed when Gilmore headbutted Barker before creatively referencing his popular TV game show by telling him that the "price is wrong!" Barker not only recovered from the beating but promptly laid Gilmore out with two well-placed body shots and a kick to the head.

It's safe to say that this probably didn't happen on Obama's golf outing yesterday.

That's not to say there wasn't a bit of controversy about the game – although it's really, really minor. The pool reporter, Lynn Sweet from the Chicago Sun Times, asked the White House if Barnes was the first woman to play golf with Obama since he became president.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton said that was "not true."

But when asked who the other women were, Mr. Burton did a 180."I was wrong about this – all apologies," he told Sweet. "He golfed with women on the campaign trail but not until Melody this year. Sorry to all the people who were unwittingly misled by what I gave the pooler."

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