President Barack Obama's personally-owned and -used customized Titleist Pro V1 golf ball, marked "POTUS" on one side and "Titleist 44" on two sides, signifying Obama's status as 44th president of the United States. The ball was discovered in the woods at Bethesda Congressional Country Club on July 27, 2014, and subsequently posted to twitter; the story was widely covered by the media, with stories appearing in Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, the New York Daily News, and a variety of other outlets. In fine condition.
When the golf ball was sold by Green Jacket Auctions on December 14, 2014, this story was provided by the consignor: "On Sunday, July 27, I played Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, MD for the first time in my life. There are two courses at Congressional, Blue & Gold. I played the Blue Course, which has hosted all of the significant tournaments at Congressional. I was invited to play at Congressional by a friend that I met while attending Southern Methodist University in Dallas. I graduated in 2010, and I have been working as a commercial banker in Dallas since then.
On hole number one, I pulled a hook into the trees along the left side of the fairway. When I went to look for my ball, I saw a ball deep in some brush, and my caddy went in to retrieve the ball. The first ball he tossed me was a 'Titleist 44.' That seemed odd to me because Titleist numbers generally range from 1-8. I flipped the ball over and it was stamped with the word "POTUS" (the acronym for President of the United States). President Obama had played the course on Saturday, July 26 with ESPN television hosts Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon. It took me a second, but I put two and two together and realized I was holding Barack Obama's golf ball. The President is left handed, so he sliced his ball off the tee on hole 1. The caddies at Congressional confirmed that the President did hit his ball there, and they were unable to find it.
When I found the ball, I took a picture of it and put it on my Instagram account (@larrydoh). The next morning I woke up to learn that media outlets all over the world had picked up the story. Even Jimmy Fallon made a joke about it later in the week." Accompanied by a printout of the original auction descriptions and several pages of news coverage.
