Joe Biden, single-digit handicap, said to be on brink of joining presidential race

Reports are trickling out that says Vice President Joe Biden will announce he is officially entering the 2016 presidential race this week. The significance of this largely depends on your political persuasion, but from a strictly golf perspective, we're encouraged.

With Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders the two early leaders in primary polls, the likelihood of the Democrats nominating a golfer for the nation's top office looked bleak. Neither plays golf, although a former Sanders political associate told New York Magazine the workaholic Vermont senator will "hit a golf ball at the driving range once or twice" for fun.

Biden, meanwhile, is a legitimate player. According to Golf Digest's most recent ranking of Washington's Top 150 golfers, the Veep boasts a 6.3 handicap, which, should he become commander-in-chief, put him in the conversation with John F. Kennedy as the best golfing president in history. (JFK didn't have an official handicap, but was said to break 80 on occasion).

Then again, not everyone has been bowled over by Biden's game. In the aftermath of the infamous Golf Summit in which Biden and President Barack Obama played with their Republican counterparts former Speaker of the House John Boehner and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Kasich made remarks suggesting Biden's handicap was embellished.

"Joe Biden told me that he was a good golfer, and I’ve played golf with Joe Biden," Kasich said at the 2012 Republican National Convention. "I can tell you that’s not true, as well as all of the other things that he says."

It's worth noting that Kasich is also running for president, bolstering a very golf-heavy Republican side of the race. Among the front-runners, Donald Trump and Jeb Bush are also avid players.