ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. --- Washington politics is a bare-knuckle game and Democrats in the 1950s thought they could pierce President Dwight Eisenhower's mystique by bashing his love of golf.

"(Eisenhower) invented the 36-hole work week," one cynic suggested.

Anyway, it was more like 72 holes some weeks.

Eisenhower's response was to flash the grin that charmed a post-war nation and extol the virtues of a game that he said soothed his soul.

Eisenhower's passion for golf will now be a part of the World Golf Hall of Fame when he becomes the first U.S. president to be enshrined at St. Augustine on Monday at the annual induction ceremony.

In addition to breaking presidential ground, "Ike" will become the second member of Augusta National Golf Club in the Hall of Fame who didn't play professional or high-level amateur golf, following Clifford Roberts, the first chairman of Augusta National and the Masters Tournament.

Eisenhower, an estimated 14- to 16-handicap, not only refused to apologize for loving a sport that was thought to be a rich man's pursuit, but he played so often that he kept bags of clubs in permanent storage at Augusta National, El Dorado in Palm Springs, Calif., and the Gettysburg (Pa.) Country Club.

Eisenhower had putting greens built at the White House and the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md. He was invited to join Augusta National shortly after a trip there in 1948, and he found a special serenity in playing Bobby Jones' tree-lined fairways, and hit one of those trees so often that it bears his name.

"Gotcha media" existed back then, at least when Eisenhower got a club in his hand. The New York Times reported that the president was seen hitting iron shots from the White House lawn in the general direction of the Washington Monument -- four days after his inauguration in 1953.

One State of the Union address was quickly followed by nine holes at the Burning Tree Golf Club in suburban Washington.

"Presidents did the State of the Union in the early afternoon at that time," said David Sowell, the author of Eisenhower and Golf: A President at Play , one of three books detailing Eisenhower's love of golf. "If it was just cold, with no snow on the ground, he would play."

And play. And play. And play.

Eisenhower, who served as president from 1952-1960 and died in 1969 at the age of 78, was a certified golf nut. Accounts vary but some have estimated he played 800 rounds of golf while he was president. That would have been an average of 200 rounds a year, 16 per month and nearly four per week.

"And that was factoring in the time he needed to recover from a heart attack," pointed out Don Van Natta, whose book First Off the Tee , is perhaps the most comprehensive account of U.S. Presidents who have played golf. "He loved golf so much that he didn't care what the critics said. President Eisenhower being in the World Golf Hall of Fame is a very, very appropriate choice."

"It was quite remarkable, the amount of golf he was able to play, given the schedule of a president," Sowell said. "He was quite taken with the game. There was a very special relationship and a passion he had for it, and he loved relating that to people. That's why he was so influential in the growth of golf. And that more or less coincided with the popularity of Arnold Palmer. The two of them really brought golf from being a game of the wealthy to a game anyone could play."

That four-time Masters winner Palmer will give the introduction for Eisenhower is a natural. The two bonded over golf and remained friends until Eisenhower died.

"Mr. Palmer became like one of the family," said Susan Eisenhower, the president's granddaughter and a political analyst.

Criticism of Eisenhower's golf schedule certainly didn't cost him any political capital. He won two terms easily, the first with the help and financial backing of Roberts and other Augusta National members.

Eisenhower had taken up golf relatively late in life, when he was 35 years old and stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. The invitation to visit Augusta National, and later to become a member, sparked a renewed interest in the game.

Ironically, when Eisenhower was driven through the gates of Augusta National by the Secret Service, he was an Augusta National member first, and the president second.

That was evident in 1956, when Eisenhower made a motion during a members' meeting to have the tree at No. 17 cut down. Roberts ruled that Eisenhower was out of order and adjourned the meeting.

The "Eisenhower Tree" remains to this day, symbolic of the fact that on the grounds of Augusta National, the chairman (Roberts) outranks the President of the United States.

"Eisenhower injured his left knee when playing football at West Point, and he had trouble with his weight transfer when playing golf," Sowell said. "The tree was about 210 yards from the member tees, which is how far he drove it then. He was always hitting that tree."

Veteran sportswriter and author Dan Jenkins is one of the many people who admire Eisenhower for being so open and vocal about his passion for golf.

"Kennedy was the best player among presidents but he heard the criticism Eisenhower got and didn't want anyone to know he played when he was running for president," Jenkins said.

That's hardly the case now, as current President Barack Obama, and former presidents George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton are avid golfers, and open about it. Perhaps they could credit Eisenhower for that.

Reach Garry Smits at garry.smits@morris.com.