Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The principals are these:

1. As a Christian, God does not accept me based on my performance.  Rather, he accepts based on the work of Christ to give me a way to God.
2. We can do “good works” for God as an outgrowth of our relationship with Him, not as a way to earn that relationship.

Not performance.

To use a word – grace.  Which is defined as “free and unmerited favor.”

This second principle has been amply expressed in a Bible study I attend in Salem, Oregon where I live for seven months a year.

The study – it is called Links and is part of a successful effort around the country to merge golf and the Bible – is hosted by my golf club in Salem, Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club.

One of my best friends also attends and has made this statement several times in recent months:  “We can do ‘good works’ for God as an outgrowth of our relationship with Him, not as a way to earn salvation.”

As one example, those of us in this Bible study contributed to a fund, which then was dispensed to Illahe workers who often made just enough money from their jobs to make ends meet.

We didn’t want to know these recipients; we just wanted to do “good works” – in this case, just a bit of money for each.  So, we asked a top management official at Illahe to pass on the cash, a process that would guarantee that didn’t know the recipients and we didn’t “get credit” for this action.

Back to the Bible.  It has a lot of negative things to say about “works of the law.”  The apostle Paul stresses repeatedly that “we’re justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.”

But good works means more than that.  The phrase “good works” is used 13 times in the New Testament, with eight occurrences in the Pastoral Epistles.  Without exception, the phrase is used in a positive, non-ironic way to describe exemplary Christian activity.

Few chapters are as relentless in advocating good works as Titus 3, though it is one of the shortest books in the New Testament.

This is exactly what Paul says in Titus 3:8:  “The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.”

Now, to put a closer point on this, I refer to my daughter. 

If she has a bit of money in her pocket and sees a homeless person, she often stops to give that person the money, saying that “he or she needs it more than I do.”

Also, my wife told me that on her recent trip to London with our daughter, they came across a person sitting in the rain who held a sign that she needed just a bit of money to buy a hostel for the night. 

My wife and daughter gave her that bit of money and felt good about doing so, not to get credit for a good deed, but that were expressing one of God’s important pieces of advice for real Christians – take time and energy to do good work for God, which often means helping people who are destitute and afraid.

So, my wife’s and my commitment is to continue to be alert for doing “good work” in the sense of what the Bible defines as that kind of work.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

A PEW Research report caught my attention the other day when it said this:  “After years of decline, the share of Christians in U.S. has stabilized.”

I put the word “Christian” in italics because, as I will note later in this blog, the definition of the word is uncertain.  So is what the word “evangelical” means, as it also was used in the PEW study.

On this confusion, here is what the magazine Christianity Today wrote:

“The term evangelical has long provoked arguments among social scientists, historians, and lay people.  It first appeared in English as an adjective that meant ‘of the gospel.’  

“The first group of people to claim evangelical as a noun was the Evangelical Voluntary Church Association in England in the 1830s. It fought for the separation of church and state.  A subsequent group, the Evangelical Alliance, organized in the following decade to fight for the rights of free churches — groups called ‘non-conformist,’ ‘dissenting,’ and then ‘evangelical.’

“In the U.S., 100 years later, the evangelist Billy Graham started using the word as a term for people who supported his ministry.  Evangelical was so broad it could include Baptists and Presbyterians but also Episcopalians and Wesleyans, and Dutch Reformed and Stone-Campbell groups, not to mention Lutherans, Pentecostals, Anabaptists, and Black churches.

“Everyone kind of knew what it meant—something to do with the gospel — and no one had too strong of an association with the word.”

For me, evangelical refers to a group that is genuinely committed to God.

With that, back to the PEW study.  As reported by the Washington Post, the study “also found that the share of those who are ‘religiously unaffiliated’ has leveled off.”

Here is how the reporter, Emily Gustin, started her story:

“The Religious Landscape Study, which was first conducted in 2007, paints a picture of America that is more secular, particularly among young people, and remains a place where religious views closely align with politics.  And for the first time in the PEW study, more liberals are unaffiliated with a religion than identify as Christian.”

As a reader of this study, it is important first to understand something about the source, PEW, as well as its methods for conducting the study.

Here is what PEW says about itself:

“For more than 75 years, PEW has used data to address the challenges of a changing world by illuminating issues, creating common ground, and advancing ambitious strategies that lead to tangible progress.”

There may be a bit of bias in that language, but, at the same time, PEW has earned credibility for its reporting, which is based on surveying to go beyond itself to find out what the “public” thinks.  In other words, it does support one side or the other side – or for that matter any side.  It reports what survey respondents say; so it is just the facts of those responses.

As for the study, it is considered the most comprehensive look at religion in the United States, with more than 36,000 people filling out a 116-question survey in all 50 states.  Results shows significant evangelical variety diversity — racially, politically, economically, and even in terms of religious practice.

I choose to subscribe to PEW reports because they often serve to amplify my thinking.

So, based on its “Religious Landscape Study,” here are some of the key findings.

• The decline in Christianity has slowed

Overall, 62 per cent of Americans call themselves Christian, a figure that has been roughly stable over the past five years, but is down from 71 per cent in 2014 and 78 per cent in 2007. In the latest poll, 40 per cent of U.S. adults identify as Protestants, 19 per cent as Catholics and 3 per cent as “other” Christians.

• More Americans identify with a religion other than Christianity

Seven per cent of Americans identify with a religion other than Christianity, up from 5 per cent in 2007.  Similar to previous PEW surveys, 1.7 per cent of Americans identify as Jewish.

At the same time, more Americans now identify as Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu.

• Most Americans are spiritual

Almost 9 in 10 Americans believe that people have a soul or spirit in addition to their physical body, according to PEW.  Seven in 10 believe in heaven, hell or both.  More than 8 in 10 believe in God or a universal spirit.

• Religion and politics closely align

Generally, the more religious someone is, the more likely they are to identify or lean toward the Republican Party and express conservative opinions.  Less-religious people are more likely to identify or lean toward the Democrat Party and express liberal opinions.

• A liberal shift away from Christianity

Among self-described liberals, 37 per cent identify as Christian, down from 62 per cent in 2007, a 25-point shift.  Meanwhile, the share of liberals who identify with no religion increased to 51 per cent in 2024, up from 27 per cent in 2007.

• Immigrants are mostly Christian

Fifty-eight percent of Americans born outside the country are Christian, as are 63 per cent of those born in the country.  Both shares are down from 2007 and 2014.

• Women are more religious than men

U.S. women have long been more likely to identify with religion than men, and to say they pray daily and believe in a God.  But the gap is narrowing.  “In every age group,” the report says, “women are at least as religious as men, and in many [generations], women are significantly more religious than men.”

Now, from me, not PEW, it would be possible to argue with this study for a couple reasons.

As I wrote above, words such as “Christian” may have various meanings for those who were surveyed.  In some cases, certain folks may believe they are Christian because they live in America.  But, for me, being a “Christian” means that you have a personal relationship with God through what Christ has done for you.

In other words, real and very personal.  So, who knows if PEW’s use of the word “Christian” means what I believe it means.

Second, it’s often difficult for any reputable outfit, in this case PEW, to test “religious issues” using surveying and polling.  Often, those who are asked to respond are not sure they want to do so or they may not respond forthrightly.  This is true these for all kinds of polls, political and otherwise.

Still, despite the potential problems, this latest PEW report provides food for thought – and I am still thinking.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

As I have noted before, every so often a columnist writes something that is worth reprinting in total in my blog.

This is such a day.

Writing in The Atlantic Magazine, Tom Nichols skewers Donald Trump and J.D. Vance for how they treated – read, mistreated – U.S. ally Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.  Call it an ambush, for that’s what it was for Zelensky.

No surprise in many ways, but Trump and Vance treated Zelensky as if he were an enemy and that no doubt was the objective advance as Zelensky tore himself away from war to visit the U.S. 

The stakes, of course, are far higher than just Trump and Vance preening for cameras in or near the Oval Office.  That’s what they do – preen.  After the ambush, reverberations started around the world as other supposed U.S. allies wondered who was going to get the next Trump-Vance salvo..

And, wouldn’t know it, Trump, the reality TV host, according to the Wall Street Journal, said this as the argument ended in the Oval Office:

“Toward the end of his on-camera, Oval Office brawl with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, Trump quipped that it was ‘great television.’  He’s right about that.  But the point of the meeting was supposed to be progress toward an honorable peace for Ukraine, and in the event the winner was Russia’s Vladimir Putin.”

There, what Trump and Vance they are doing, with nary a second thought, is risking the U.S. position in the world as they snuggle up to Putin.

Here is Nichols’ column.  Read it and weep for America.

Leave aside, if only for a moment, the utter boorishness with which President Donald Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance treated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House today. Also leave aside the spectacle of American leaders publicly pummeling a friend as if he were an enemy. All of the ghastliness inflicted on Zelensky today should not obscure the geopolitical reality of what just happened:  The president of the United States ambushed a loyal ally, presumably so that he can soon make a deal with the dictator of Russia to sell out a European nation fighting for its very existence. Trump’s advisers have already declared the meeting a win for “putting America first,” and his apologists will likely spin and rationalize this shameful moment as just a heated conversation — the kind of thing that in Washington-speak used to be called a “frank and candid exchange.” But this meeting reeked of a planned attack, with Trump unloading Russian talking points on Zelensky (such as blaming Ukraine for risking global war), all of it designed to humiliate the Ukrainian leader on national television and give Trump the pretext to do what he has indicated repeatedly he wants to do: side with Russian President Vladimir Putin and bring the war to an end on Russia’s terms. Trump is now reportedly considering the immediate end of all military aid to Ukraine because of Zelensky’s supposed intransigence during the meeting. Vance’s presence at the White House also suggests that the meeting was a setup.  Vance is usually an invisible backbencher in this administration, with few duties other than some occasional trolling of Trump’s critics. (The actual business of furthering Trump’s policies is apparently now Elon Musk’s job.) This time, however, he was brought in to troll not other Americans, but a foreign leader.  Marco Rubio — in theory, America’s top diplomat — was also there, but he sat glumly and silently while Vance pontificated like an obnoxious graduate student. Zelensky objected, as he should have, when the vice president castigated the Ukrainian president for not showing enough personal gratitude to Trump. And then in a moment of immense hypocrisy, Vance told Zelensky that it was “disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media.” But baiting Zelensky into fighting in front of the media was likely the plan all along, and Trump and Vance were soon both yelling at Zelensky. (“This is going to be great television,” Trump said during the meeting.) The president at times sounded like a Mafia boss — “You don’t have the cards”; “you’re buried there” — but in the end, he sounded like no one so much as Putin himself as he hollered about “gambling with World War III,” as if starting the biggest war in Europe in nearly a century was Zelensky’s idea. After the meeting, Trump dismissed the Ukrainian leader and then issued a statement that could only have pleased Moscow:  “I have determined that President Zelensky is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations.  I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE.  He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office.  He can come back when he is ready for Peace.” Trump might as well have dictated this post on Truth Social before the meeting, because Zelensky didn’t stand a chance of having an actual discussion at the White House.  When he showed Trump pictures of brutalized Ukrainian soldiers, Trump shrugged. “That’s tough stuff,” he muttered. Perhaps someone told Zelensky that Trump doesn’t read much, and reacts to images, but Trump, uncharacteristically, seems to have been determined to stay on message and pick a fight. Vance, for his part, fully inhabited the role of a smarmy talk-show sidekick, jumping in to make sure the star got the support he needed while slamming one of the guests.   The vice president is an unserious man who tries to insert himself into serious moments, but this time the stakes were much higher than the usual dustups with the media or congressional Democrats.  He chuckled as Brian Glenn, a journalist from the right-wing channel Real America’s Voice who is reportedly dating Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, asked Zelensky the tough and incisive question of why he had not worn a suit in the Oval Office. (Perhaps he’ll ask Musk why he wore a hat and T-shirt to a Cabinet meeting, but I doubt it.) The sheer rudeness shown to a foreign guest and friend of the United States was (to use a word) deplorable as a matter of manners and grace, but worse, Trump and Vance acted like a couple of online Kremlin sock puppets instead of American leaders. They pushed talking points that they either knew or should have known were wrong. Even if Zelensky were as fluent and capable in English as Winston Churchill, he would never have been able to rebut the flood of falsehoods. No, the U.S. has not given Ukraine $350 billion; yes, Zelensky has repeatedly expressed his thanks to America and to Trump; no, Zelensky was not attacking the administration. The Ukrainian leader did his best to stand up to the bullying, but Trump and Vance were playing to the cameras and the MAGA gallery at home. Vance showed how dedicated he was to point-scoring rather than policy making with an observation so shallow that he was lucky that Zelensky was too off-balance to call him out for it. To emphasize Ukraine’s perilous situation, Vance noted that Zelensky was sending conscripts to the front lines, as if this was an unprecedented policy that only the most desperate regime would dare enact. Zelensky said that all nations at war have problems, but he might have pointed out to Vance that Ukraine is fighting for its very existence, while the United States has dragged conscripts to places far from home—including Korea and Vietnam—to fight against troops supported by the Kremlin. Today’s meeting and America’s shameful vote in the United Nations on Monday confirmed that the United States is now aligned with Russia and against Ukraine, Europe, and most of the planet. I felt physically sick watching the president of the United States yell at a brave ally, fulminating in the Oval Office as if he were an addled old man shaking his fist at a television. Zelensky has endured tragedies, and risked his life, in ways that men such as Trump and Vance cannot imagine.  (Vance served as a public-relations officer in the most powerful military in the world; he has never had to huddle in a bunker during a Russian bombardment.)  I am ashamed for my nation; even if Congress acts to support and aid Ukraine, it cannot restore the American honor lost today. But no matter how disgusted anyone might be at Trump and Vance’s behavior, the strategic reality is that this meeting is a catastrophe for the United States and the free world. America’s alliances are now in danger, and should be:  Trump is openly, and gleefully, betraying everything America has tried to defend since the defeat of the Axis 80 years ago.  The entire international order of peace and security is now in danger, as Russian autocrats, after slaughtering innocent people for three years, look forward to enjoying the spoils of their invasion instead of standing trial for their crimes. (Shortly after Trump dismissed Zelensky from the White House, Putin’s homunculus, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, postedon X: “The insolent pig finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office.”) Friday, February 28, 2025, will go into the history books as one of the grimmest days in American diplomacy, the beginning of a long-term disaster that every American, every U.S. ally, and anyone who cares about the future of democracy will have to endure. With the White House’s betrayal of Ukraine capping a month of authoritarian chaos in America, Putin, along with other dictators around the world, can finally look at Trump with confidence and think:  One of us.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Various media outlets today are reporting this:

“Trump is coming off as Putin’s poodle,” as the so-called U.S. president Donald Trump snuggles up to Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

I protest.

Comparing Trump to poodles does the latter a crime.

Poodles – my wife and have had two in our lives – are better and smater than Trump ever was or could be.

For one thing, poodles are smart.  Trump isn’t.

If poodles had vocal cords, they could speak and what they would say would be far better than anything Trump has said or would say.

So, Trump, snuggle up to Putin if you feel you must.  But, for the media – don’t use poodles in the metaphor.  They and I protest…loudly.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Okay, as we all deal with how Donald Trump and his lackeys will violate federal law without a smidge of regret, some of us have to find ways to respond.

While “ways to respond” will, I hope, mean more than two of my minor protests with regard to writing, it still feels better for me to hone these protests.

Here they are:

• When I refer to Trump, I will refrain from calling him Mr. as is done routinely by such top newspapers as the New York Times.  I don’t exalt that moniker; it just feels good not to do so.

• Also, when I refer to Trump, I will not use the word “administration” to cite what he is doing as president, as I would with any other president.  Using that word conveys that I might have a notion that  Trump is “administering” anything.  He is not.  He is just flying by the seat of his pants, no matter if anyone opposes his illegal actions – not Congress, not the courts, not public opinion.

There!

I feel better already, even though there is no way my protests will matter.

Still, all of us Americans must find real ways to oppose Trump as he continues dismantling the America we know.

These small protests could lead to bigger ones for me.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Well, the answer to the question posed in this blog headline:  Perhaps.

And, if a crisis exists, it is exactly what Donald Trump wants.

You see, he views himself as king or dictator, so nothing else matters.  Not what others think.  Not Congress.  Not the courts.  Not public opinion.  And, not the U.S. Constitution.

Here is the way the New York Times put it:

“Trump is operating under the theory that the Executive Branch is unitary, in the sense that Article II of the Constitution places executive power in a single person, the president, who gets to control every high-level official who executes federal law (and plenty of lower-level ones, too).”

And, here’s a summary of the U.S. Constitution because, to know if it is in jeopardy, we all need to know what it is.

“Written in 1787, ratified in 1788, and in operation since 1789, the United States Constitution is the world’s longest surviving written charter of government.

“Its first three words – “We The People” – affirm that the government of the United States exists to serve its citizens.

“The supremacy of the people through their elected representatives is recognized in Article I, which creates a Congress consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives.  The positioning of Congress at the beginning of the Constitution affirms its status as the “First Branch” of the federal government.

“The Constitution assigned to Congress responsibility for organizing the executive and judicial branches, raising revenue, declaring war, and making all laws necessary for executing these powers.

“The president is permitted to veto specific legislative acts, but Congress has the authority to override presidential vetoes by two-thirds majorities of both houses.  The Constitution also provides that the Senate advise and consent on key executive and judicial appointments and on the approval for ratification of treaties.

“For over two centuries the Constitution has remained in force because its framers successfully separated and balanced governmental powers to safeguard the interests of majority rule and minority rights, of liberty and equality, and of the federal and state governments.

“More a concise statement of national principles than a detailed plan of governmental operation, the Constitution has evolved to meet the changing needs of a modern society profoundly different from the eighteenth-century world in which its creators lived.  To date, the Constitution has been amended 27 times, most recently in 1992.  The first ten amendments constitute the Bill of Rights.”

All this came up in my mind mostly because of an article in The Atlantic Magazine by David A. Graham.

He started his column this way:

:Grasping the scale of President Donald Trump’s assault on American governance is no small matter.  The administration is challenging laws, claiming the right to reinterpret the Constitution, questioning judges’ powers, and arrogating new powers to itself.  Seeking to convey the gravity of the situation, many commentators have labeled what’s happening a ‘constitutional crisis.’

“That’s a mistake — not because what’s happening is not serious, but because it is so serious.  This week, the Trump administration came the closest it has thus far to outright refusing to follow a judge’s order, after days of comments from Vice President J. D. Vance, Bureaucrat in Chief Elon Musk, and others questioning whether a president must follow court rulings.  That’s a threat to the very basic question of whether a president is subject to the law or not — especially when so many things that Trump has done appear plainly illegal.”

But, Graham believes what he calls “the abstraction of constitutional crisis obscures the immediate danger, making what’s happening seem like an issue more for legal experts and policy wonks than for the everyday Americans who stand to lose not only essential government services but also fundamental rights.

“A president refusing to abide by the law or the Constitution and ignoring court orders to stop his illegitimate actions would be a constitutional crisis like a bank robbery is a cash flow crisis,” says Joseph Ura, a political scientist at Clemson University.”

A recent New York Times article reported that many legal scholars believe the country is in a constitutional crisis, but it began by acknowledging, “There is no universally accepted definition of a constitutional crisis.”

The law, for all its careful parsing of language, has a weakness for this sort of I-know-it-when-I-see-it formulation, but if even the professors can’t define it, how can the general public?

More from The Atlantic writer, Graham:

“At one time, appeals to the sanctity of the Constitution might have swayed more people, but one reason Trump has been able to dominate U.S. politics for so long is that voters are not feeling protective of their institutions.

“About six in 10 people in a 2022 New York Times poll said the constitutional order needs major reforms.  In 2023, PEW found that just 4 per cent of Americans think the political system is working very well.  And in 2024, voters selected a guy who’d tried to overturn the previous election.  Regardless of what law professors think, the populace has already decided that the Constitution is in crisis.

“And insofar as people do think of this as a ‘crisis,’ that might only further empower Trump — who’s responsible for it in the first place.  That’s because, in times of crisis, Americans usually look to the president to act quickly and decisively.

“That can be good in a bona fide external crisis, like an attack by a foreign country or a pandemic, but that’s not what’s happening now.”

What’s happening now is Trump disregarding the rule of law – the rule of the U.S. Constitution – when it suits him.  He doesn’t care about the usual boundaries, but, as he preens for TV and on-line sources, I hope his contempt will catch up with him.

The future of American democracy depends on it.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Regarding this blog headline, middle ground is lost under Trump, but is it gone forever?

Too early to tell, but I fear that, if Trump has his way, the idea that middle ground exists – call it compromise, if you will – could no longer be possible.

You see, Trump and his sycophants want to be dictators, if not kings.  They don’t believe in compromise.  They only want to assert their will.  Congress be damned.  The courts be damned.  Plus, they think public opinion is what they say it is, not what it is.

If middle ground is lost, they say “so be it.”  To them, it’s “my way or the highway.”

One other aspect of this is worth noting. 

If the “other side” rails against Trump’s over-the-top actions, all that does is infuse him with more intent to continue going down “his” path.  He never responds well to criticism, for he thinks it is all part of a major effort “to get him.”

It’s exactly what paranoid narcissists do.  It’s always all about them and no one else matters.

For my part, I always have thought that middle ground is often where the best solutions lie for pressing public policy challenges.

Neither the hard right nor the hard left.  In the middle.

That’s what I thought when I worked as state lobbyist for 25 years in Oregon.  I often saw an intent to produce solutions that work for the benefit of both Republicans and Democrats, as well as for the public at large.

As examples in Oregon, top-of-mind for me are three health care issues because much of my time was spent representing Providence Health and Services, as well as other health clients.  So, this morning, I cite the three issues:

• A Special Tax on Hospitals:  A few years ago, someone – not sure whom – came up with what was a decent idea.  Tax hospitals, use the money as it landed in State of Oregon coffers as match for federal money under Medicaid, and, thus, gain more money from Washington, D.C. than otherwise would have arrived here.

Again, a decent idea.  But, as lobbyists, we were concerned that the “new money” actually might not go to low-income health care in Oregon because, on occasion, “health care money” had been diverted elsewhere.

So, we advocated for creation of a “work group” composed of legislators and lobbyists, as well as the Governor’s Office, that would hammer out consensus details.  It worked.

The consensus was put into a memorandum that all parties signed and the result?  New money intended for health care went to health care.

• A Special Tax On Health Insurance Premiums:  The same notion as above worked its way into the idea that health insurance companies domiciled in Oregon should pay a tax, with the proceeds intended to be for the federal match.

Again, with a work group consensus, the new system worked for the benefit of low-income Oregonians in need of medical care.

Now, in the spirit of candor, I add that a critic of these two tax approaches would say the scheme was just a bid to gain MORE federal spending.  Perhaps true, but, to me, the end justified the means:  More money came to Oregon for a consensus purpose — better health care.  A middle ground solution.

• Assisted Suicide Compromise:  My final example of middle ground occurred in relation a very controversial “human” issue when it was passed by Oregon voters:  A procedure for persons, within certain limits, to end their lives in response to huge physical limitations they faced.  In other words, end their lives early.  The assisted suicide law is now more than 20 years old in Oregon.

I had a special role on behalf of Providence once the assisted suicide law was on the books.

Given Providence’s dotted-line connection to the Catholic Church, I advocated for a “conscience clause,” which would allow Providence employees to opt out of being involved in suicide processes if doing so was against their “conscience.”  The clause also would say that assisted suicide did not need to be practiced at Providence facilities if the leaders of those facilities had a “conscience” against doing so.

To achieve this, I relied on the best legislator to lead middle ground solutions, Senator Neil Bryant, R-Bend, who is still a friend to this day.  At my request, he agreed to form a work group to consider alternatives and, due to his leadership, the process succeeded.

Providence properties (eight hospitals throughout Oregon) and Providence nurses and other staff were given the right to opt out in exchange for Providence referring those who genuinely wanted assisted suicide to reputable providers outside the hospital system.

It was a tough solution because, to some Providence leaders, “referral” amounted to “being an agent by which something inappropriate – assisted suicide – was done.”  Agentry went against Catholic principles..

Still, Providence was a health care system, not a church.  So, referral worked.  When all was said and done, a reasonable solution that amounted to “policy in the middle.”  And, to this day, the compromise works for Providence and for citizens who want assisted suicide.

The bottom-line point is that middle ground does exist if those involved want to find it and are willing to work hard to do so.

Back to Trump.  He won’t even look.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

NOTE:  I labeled this blog part 2 because it follows one yesterday where I quoted several columnists dealing with all the lies Donald Trump has told as a matter of course, believing that repetition equals truth.  This time I reprint the entire column by one of those writers, Peter Baker, who works for the New York Times.  He is one of the best political writers going these days.

Baker joined The Times in 2008 after 20 years at The Washington Post and has covered the White House over the course of the past six presidencies, starting in 1996 with Bill Clinton and continuing through George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald J. Trump, Joseph R. Biden Jr., and now Trump again.

So, his analysis matters.  Kudos to him for being willing to share it.

*********

By Peter Baker

The United States sent $50 million in condoms to Hamas.  Diversity programs caused a plane crash.  China controls the Panama Canal.  Ukraine started the war with Russia.

Except, no.

None of that is true.

Not that it stops Trump.  In the first month since he returned to power, he has demonstrated once again a brazen willingness to advance distortions, conspiracy theories and outright lies to justify major policy decisions.

Trump has long been unfettered by truth when it comes to boasting about his record and tearing down his enemies.  But what were dubbed “alternative facts” in his first term have quickly become a whole alternative reality in his second to lay the groundwork for radical change as he moves aggressively to reshape America and the world.

If the U.S. Agency for International Development is stupid enough to send prophylactics to a Palestinian terrorist group in Gaza, he claims, then it deserves to be dismantled.  If recruiting people other than white men to work in the airline sector compromises safety, such programs should be eliminated.  If China controls the strategic passage through the continent, the United States should take it back.  If Ukraine is the aggressor, it should make concessions to Moscow.

“One of the biggest presidential powers that Trump has deployed is the ability to shape his own narrative,” said Julian E. Zelizer, a Princeton history professor and editor of a book of essays about Trump’s first term.  “We have seen repeatedly how Trump creates his own reality to legitimate his actions and simultaneously discredit warnings about his decisions.”

Taking his real-estate hucksterism and reality-show storytelling into politics, Trump has for years succeeded in selling his version of events.  The world according to Trump is one where he is a master of every challenge and any failure is someone else’s fault.

He claimed to have built the greatest economy in history during his first term so many times that even some of his critics came to accept that it was better than it really was.  He dismissed intelligence reports that Russia intervened in the 2016 elections on his behalf so often that many supporters accepted his denial.

Most significantly, Trump has waged a four-year campaign to persuade Americans that he did not lose the 2020 election when in fact he did, making one false assertion of widespread fraud after another that would all be debunked yet still leave most Republicans convinced it was stolen, according to polls.

At the same time, he has recast the January 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by supporters trying to stop the transfer of power from a “heinous attack,” as he originally termed it, to a “day of love,” as he now calls it.  This revised interpretation helped him rationalize pardoning nearly 1,600 people who were charged, including many who had beaten police officers.

“Trump is a highly skilled narrator and propagandist,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present” and a historian at New York University who specializes in fascism and authoritarianism.  “Actually, he is one of the most skilled propagandists in history.”

Ben-Ghiat said what made Trump’s “easily refutable lie” about the 2020 election so remarkable was that he was “working not in a one-party state or authoritarian context with a controlled media, but in a totally open society with a free press.”

But she and other scholars said some of Trump’s themes resemble those seen in authoritarian states.  “The kind of propaganda and disinformation that we see now is not particularly new and not dependent on the internet,” said Benjamin Carter Hett, a historian of World War II at Hunter College.  “Exactly the same kind of thing happened in the very diverse and lively German press of the 1920s and 1930s.”

Trump’s aides have long recognized his penchant for prevarication and either adjusted or eventually broke with him.  John F. Kelly, his longest-serving White House chief of staff in his first term, has said that Trump would tell his press aides to publicly repeat something that he had just made up.  When Kelly would object, saying, “but that’s not true,” Trump would say, “but it sounds good.”

Stephanie Grisham, who served as a White House press secretary in the first term, once recalled that Trump would tell aides that “as long as you keep repeating something, it doesn’t matter what you say.”  And that trickled down to the staff.  “Casual dishonesty filtered through the White House as though it were in the air-conditioning system,” she wrote in her memoir.

Anthony Scaramucci, a former Trump ally who served briefly as his White House communications director, said on Friday that Trump believes dishonesty works.  Trump, he said, is at “50 years of distorting things and telling lies and he is at 50 years of getting away with it, so why wouldn’t he make the lies bigger and more impactful in this last stretch?”

The exaggerations and falsehoods serve a strategic purpose.  While Trump won a clean victory in November, including in the popular vote, which he lost in 2016, he did not win a majority and his 1.5-percentage-point margin was one of the lowest since the 19th century.  But he regularly says that he won a “landslide victory,” which serves not just to stroke his ego but to assert an expansive popular mandate for his agenda.

Trump, who repeatedly disparaged media fact-checking during last year’s campaign, does not back off after misleading statements and lies are exposed.  Instead, he tends to double down, repeating them even after it’s been reported that they are not true.

After reporters determined that the $50 million for condoms story was untrue, Trump not only repeated it, he increased the supposed total to $100 million.  Nor did he back down after falsely claiming that U.S.A.I.D. had provided grants to media organizations as “a ‘payoff’ for creating good stories about the Democrats,” even after learning the money was simply for subscriptions.

Likewise, Trump made his claim about diversity programs and air safety the day after the midair collision of a passenger jet and Army helicopter in Washington without an ounce of proof, nor did he ever follow up with any.  And while a Hong Kong company operates two of five ports adjacent to the Panama Canal, he continues to say the passage is controlled by China when in fact Panama operates it.

And to support his effort to rescind the constitutional right to birthright citizenship, Trump keeps saying that the United States is “the only country in the world that does this,” even though it has been repeatedly reported that in fact more than 30 countries do.

“Opponents end up arguing about his narratives regardless of how grounded they are in fact,” said Dr. Zelizer.  “This has put President Trump in a perpetual position of advantage since he decides the terms of debate rather than anyone seeking to stop him.”

In Trump’s facts-are-fungible world, conspiracy theories at times are given as much weight as tangible evidence and those who traffic in them are granted access that no other president would give.  Just this past week, he talked about going to Fort Knox to see if the nation’s gold really is there, indulging a fringe suspicion that it is somehow missing.

Invited to accompany Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to Europe was Jack Posobiec, a far-right influencer who promoted the lie that Democrats were running a pedophile ring out of a Washington pizza parlor, a lie that inspired an armed man to burst in and open fire to save the supposed victims.  Posobiec ended up not going but later accompanied Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to Ukraine.

Trump’s blame-the-victim revisionism over Ukraine in recent days has been among the most striking efforts to translate his alternative reality into policy.  Over the course of several recent days, he said that Ukraine “started” the war with Russia in 2022 and called the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a “dictator without elections,” while absolving President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, an actual dictator who had invaded his neighbor.  He went even further on Friday, saying, “It’s not Russia’s fault.”

By undercutting public sympathy for Ukraine, Trump may make it easier for him to strike a peace agreement with Putin giving Russia much of what it wants even over any objections by Zelensky or European leaders.  Since Zelensky is a dictator responsible for the war, this reasoning goes, he deserves less consideration.

One of Trump’s claims about Ukraine offers a case study in his mythmaking.  He said that the United States has provided $350 billion in aid to Ukraine, three times as much as Europe, but that much of the money is “missing” and that Zelensky “admits that half of the money we sent him is missing.”

In fact, the United States has allocated about a third of what Trump claimed, even less than Europe, and none of it is known to be missing.

The dollar figures cited for U.S. aid to Ukraine can vary depending on how government officials present them, what time period they cover and whether they include humanitarian and economic assistance.

How did Trump arrive at his claim?  The White House did not respond to a request for elaboration.  But it appears that Trump was referring to a recent interview with Zelensky that the president or his staff either misunderstood or distorted.

In the interview, Zelensky was asked by The Associated Press about exaggerated numbers and he corrected them.  “When it’s said that Ukraine received $200 billion to support the army during the war, that’s not true,” Zelensky said according to a translation by Ukrainska Pravda, a Ukrainian news outlet.  “I don’t know where all that money went.”

Zelensky was not saying that there was $200 billion and that he did not know where all of it went.  He was saying there never was $200 billion in the first place.  Even Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, has indicated no concern over missing money, saying that “we have a pretty good accounting of where it’s going.”  Indeed, the vast bulk of U.S. aid approved for Ukraine has been in the form of weapons, not cash.

But that does not comport with the official line at the White House.  Once Trump makes an assertion, those who work for him — and want to keep working for him — are compelled to tailor their own versions of reality to match his.  Even if it requires them to abandon previous understandings of the facts.

So, there was Michael Waltz, the former Republican congressman from Florida now serving as Trump’s national security adviser, pressed last week to reconcile his past comments about who was responsible for the war in Ukraine with his boss’s current position.

A reporter read aloud from an opinion column that Waltz had written in 2023 stating that “Putin is to blame, certainly, like Al Qaeda was to blame for 9/11.”  Waltz was asked if he still believed that or whether he now shared Trump’s assessment that Ukraine had started the war.

“Well,” Waltz said carefully, “it shouldn’t surprise you that I share the president’s assessment on all kinds of issues.  What I wrote as a member of Congress was as a former member of Congress.”

And so, Waltz’s actual reality gave way to Trump’s alternative version.

*********

And, I add this conclusion by drawing a quote from what Baker wrote…here it is:

“The kind of propaganda and disinformation that we see now is not particularly new and not dependent on the internet…Exactly the same kind of thing happened in the very diverse and lively German press of the 1920s and 1930s.”

So, there it is.  A comparison between Hitler and Trump, though the former is not mentioned by name, though it was in the 20s and 30s that Hitler rose to power and tried to kill off a race of people – the Jews.  It appears that Trump is mimicking the German killer; he wants to be like him and that should concern all Americans.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is

image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

NOTE:  This is the first of two blogs dealing with this “repeating lies” concept.  This first installment covers various media reports as I open the Department Good Quotes Worth Remembering.  The last quote is drawn from a column by Peter Baker in the New York Times.  So, in blog #2, I reprint Baker’s entire column because it is so good.

The headline on this blog came from Atlantic Magazine writer Tom Nichols.

Regarding Donald Trump, it rings true.

Trump believes that, just because he says something, it is true.

And, if accused of lying, that charge doesn’t stop him.  He just repeats the lie and appears to believe that repetition produces truth.

Nichols’ good line prompts me to open one of the five departments I run – this one is the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering.  No need here to mention the other four departments I manage; each stands on its own.

From the New York Times:  The scariest thing about what President Trump is doing with his tariffs-for-all strategy, I believe, is that he has no clue what he is doing — or how the world economy operates, for that matter.  He’s just making it all up as he goes along — and we are all along for the ride.

From The Atlantic Magazine:  Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in Saudi Arabia pretending to be in charge of negotiations between the U.S. and Russia over the fate of Ukraine.  Rubio is the perfect fall guy for this assignment.  Confirmed as secretary of state by a 99–0 vote, he’s won praise from all sides for his commitment to American institutions and values.

The word “pretending” above is drawn to make comparisons to William Rogers who, under President Nixon, was Secretary of State.  But, Nixon didn’t involve Rogers in Vietnam peace talks, so Rogers was nothing more than a figurehead.  Rubio may be suffering the same fate.

More from The Atlantic:  This week, Donald Trump falsely accused Ukraine of starting a war against a much larger neighbor, inviting invasion and mass death.  At this point, Trump — who has a history of trusting Russian President Vladimir Putin more than he trusts the Americans who are sworn to defend the United States — may even believe it.

Casting Ukraine as the aggressor (and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “dictator,” which Trump has done) makes political sense for Trump, who is innately deferential to Putin, and likely views the conflict as a distraction from his own personal and political agendas.  The U.S. president has now chosen to throw America to Putin’s side and is more than willing to see this war end on Russian terms.

Repeating lies, however, does not make them true.

Russia, and specifically Putin, launched this war in 2014 and widened it in 2022.  The information and media ecosystem around Trump and the Republican Party has tried for years to submerge the Russian war against Ukraine in a sump of moral relativism, because many in the GOP admire Putin as some sort of Christian strongman.  But Putin is making war on a country that is mostly composed of his fellow Orthodox Christians, solely based on his own grandiose fantasies.

From hill.com:  Elon Musk was never elected to any office, yet he is running roughshod over many parts of the federal government. 

Musk and the make-believe Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to tap into databases across the government is facing broad pushback from a variety of groups sounding the alarm over the privacy and security risks.

From the New York Times:  One of the best political writers going these days, Peter Baker, puts it this way:

The United States sent $50 million in condoms to Hamas.  Diversity programs caused a plane crash.  China controls the Panama Canal.  Ukraine started the war with Russia.

Except, no.  None of that is true.  Not that it stops Trump.  In the first month since he returned to power, he has demonstrated once again a brazen willingness to advance distortions, conspiracy theories, and outright lies to justify major policy decisions.

Trump has long been unfettered by truth when it comes to boasting about his record and tearing down his enemies.  But what were dubbed “alternative facts” in his first term have quickly become a whole alternative reality in his second to lay the groundwork for radical change as he moves to aggressively reshape America and the world.

And, from me, enough for today, even though there are many more good quotes.  Next time.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

An unorthodox putting technique called aim-point is taking over the sport.  Not everyone is happy about it.

Including those, like me, who worry about slow play in professional golf because aim-point aggravates the slowness.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Andrew Beaton, tried to explain aim-point.

“When the best golfers in the world line up a putt these days,” Beaton wrote, “many of them look completely deranged. 

“Their process for reading greens everywhere from Augusta National to St. Andrews involves standing over the line of the putt, closing one eye and sticking a couple fingers in the air as if they’re trying to hail a cab to the clubhouse.  

“Never in the centuries since a bunch of Scots started malleting balls toward a cup had anyone studied greens quite like this before.”

However, Beaton writes that aim-point has become as popular as it is polarizing.  

“One PGA Tour veteran, 2009 U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover, recently inflamed the controversy when he called for aim-point to be banned and cited it as a factor in golf’s pace-of-play debate.  Others have criticized it for simply looking silly — or worse, violating the game’s unwritten rules when players stomp around too close to the hole.”

Even so, a growing number of top pros swear by it.  They argue it makes the maddening art of reading a green more scientific and that the backlash against it is just uninformed.  

One is Collin Morikawa.

“Aim-point has 1,000 per cent helped me,” he says.  “I don’t think people understand how aim-point works to really say this is right or wrong.”

Beaton goes on to explain the technique this way: 

“First, you straddle the putt’s line at the point of the biggest break.  Then you use your footing to discern the amount of tilt, at which point you assign a number — usually one, two or three — to the slope’s severity.  

“Next, standing behind the ball with one eye closed and a pointer finger aimed at the center of the hole, you raise the number of fingers that corresponds to that slope.  And that’s your line.  So, if you estimate the slope at 2 per cent from right to left, you aim at the point outside your middle finger.  Voilà. 

‘There is nothing textbook about it to players who have been taught to bend over and read a green with their eyes.  Aim-point is feeling instead of seeing.”

And that’s the exact idea an unemployed golf nut with no professional experience in the game had when he first came up with aim-point. 

More from Beaton:

“’Your body is very, very good at balancing itself,’ says aim-point’s pioneer, 57-year-old Mark Sweeney.  ‘And your eyes are very easy to trick with optical illusions.’

“The idea dates back to 2003, when Sweeney was at home watching the final round of Ben Curtis’s improbable victory at the British Open.  On that afternoon, he kept seeing something repeat itself:  Players were misreading the same putt in the same direction on the 18th green.

“I don’t understand why this is so difficult,’ he thought.  

“With all the technology flooding into the game, he believed there had to be a better way to read greens. 

“Sweeney had never played the game competitively, but he did have a background in finance and software development.  So, he wrote 100,000 lines of code for a program that would laser scan greens and calculate the optimal path and speed for every putt.  This was long enough ago that the first platform he made for it was for a PalmPilot.  

“But because golfers can’t lug laboratory equipment with them to model every green, it wasn’t practical on the course.  Its first widespread use was actually on television broadcasts, and Sweeney was part of a Golf Channel team that won a Sports Emmy for the tech in 2008. 

“As Sweeney heard feedback from the industry and parlayed his expertise into a new career as a putting guru, golfers wanted something they could actually use.  First, he came up with a system of charts that told players where to aim.  That was still cumbersome and complicated.  It was only when he was teaching some 7-year-olds that he came up with the version of aim-point that’s widely used today. 

“Sweeney was giving a lesson to a bunch of kids in 2013 and wanted a basic way of teaching them to feel the high side of the hole, so he had them straddle their line like an invisible seesaw.  What he quickly discovered was that the slope corresponds to the number of fingers you hold up because it even accounts for distance.  On a longer putt, those fingers block more of the green and tell you to aim farther from the cup, the same way golfers need to calculate for more break.

“It isn’t an exact science.  It can take time for players to learn how to read slope with their own balance, though Sweeney says most people get within a half percentage point quickly.  Putts can also break more than once, and there are adjustments players need to learn to make, such as how far they hold out their arm with their fingers raised, based on the speed of the green.  Yet he found it was more accurate than simply eyeballing it and guessing. 

“’It happens to match the physics of a golf ball rolling on a green,’ Sweeney says.  ‘For whatever crazy reason.’” 

Some pro golfers were crazy enough to try it.  Brian Gay, a five-time winner on the PGA Tour, was the first in early 2014, and he says it came naturally to him as someone who always used his feet to feel a green’s slope.  But that doesn’t mean everyone accepted it.  

“Other golfers,” Beaton wrote, “looked at him as though he was using an umbrella for a putter.  ‘Most guys were like, ‘What is he doing?’

“Yet, others such as Adam Scott soon followed.  Since then, it’s taken off so much that instructors all across the globe teach the technique.  Viktor Hovland, Dustin Johnson and Justin Rose have all used it.  Nowadays, it isn’t unusual to see an entire group of players and their caddies in the middle of greens, aiming and pointing.” 

The opposite of the benefits of aim-point revolve around the fact that it takes far longer than old-school green reading and slows down the game for fans.

Even beyond pace of play, others chafe at how some players pace around too close to the hole to feel the break. 

So, make your own decision, as I have.  I don’t use it – not smart enough – and I don’t like its use on pro golf tours.

The bottom-line for me:  Using aim-point already slows down what has come to be a slow game anyway.  So, ban it and return to reading greens like they deserve to be ready, which means bending down to see the line and then putting.