Condoleezza Rice, who was secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration from 2005 to 2009, has enjoyed a long love affair with the game of golf.
Growing up in what she has called a “segregated Birmingham, Alabama,” Rice’s father was a three-sport letterman in college football, basketball and tennis, but it never occurred to him to play golf. Meanwhile, she was a competitive figure skater from the age of 6, and she long wondered why her parents didn’t put a golf club in her hands instead of skates on her feet. She came to the game late, discovering it at the Greenbrier while on vacation with a cousin whose husband gave golf lessons.
“The first two days of the camp they kept having us hit 7-iron, 7-iron, 7-iron,” she told Marla Ridenour of the Akron Beacon Journal and the USA Today Network back in 2022. “I thought, ‘This is absolutely as boring as I thought it was going to be.’ Then they put a driver in my hand and I was hooked. I was Secretary of State [from 2005-08], didn’t have much time, but I went out to Andrews Air Force Base and I found a pro named Allen Burton. I learned the basics and figured I’d really get serious about it when I came back to California.”
She’s been a champion of the game ever since, and has a pair of holes-in-one to her credit.
In a video unveiled by the USGA on Monday, Rice walks fans through one of the greatest tests in the game of golf, Cypress Point, which will host the 2025 Walker Cup.
The 50th edition of the biennial competition between 10 of the best amateurs from the United States against their counterparts from Great Britain and Ireland will take place Sept. 6-7 at the course in Pebble Beach, California. It’s the second time the famed links, ranked No. 1 on Golfweek’s Best list of Classic Courses in the U.S., has hosted the Walker Cup, the first time coming in 1981. The Americans won, 15-9.
Rice’s commentary and the visuals make for an incredible 11-minute video:
Rice has said she’s happy to advance the game of golf, especially opening it to a more diverse group of players.
“So many people don’t get that opportunity because the game has in the past been expensive, exclusive, hard to find a place to play, and where, frankly, there were color barriers that had to be broken,” she said. “I look at a person like Charlie Sifford, I look at Lee Elder, who I knew pretty well. This was not easy. I was just talking with somebody about this. We looked to Jackie Robinson, amazing story, but there are Brooklyn Dodgers fans who wanted him to win, who wanted him to be good. Can you imagine the loneliness if you’re out on one of these golf courses if you’re Lee Elder if people don’t think you should be there?
“I always thought of growing the game of golf as giving access to this wonderful, wonderful sport for people who might not have it, who might not have even thought about it because of some of the barriers to entering it.”
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