Barack Obama and John Boehner go head to head on the golf course

The late US president Lyndon Johnson once said that a key lesson for golfing politicians was never to beat the president.

But when John Boehner takes to the greens on Saturday the Republican Speaker of the House will probably have to ignore that sage advice.

In the first known game between a Speaker and a president, Mr Boehner will take on Barack Obama in a game that is intriguing Washington's political classes far more than the US Open taking place up the road in Maryland.

The winner is almost foregone conclusion: Mr Boehner's handicap is eight, though it has been as low as five. Mr Obama's is described as 17, though political golfers in the know view that as generous.

The Speaker was placed 43rd in a Golf Digest survey of the capital's best golfers, while Mr Obama limped in at 108th.

The two are at loggerheads over taxes, spending cuts, Libya and a host of other issues, and have a courteous but cool public relationship.

But they do have one thing in common - the habit of ignoring Winston Churchill's view that golf is a good walk spoiled.