he wrote Lucius Ordway, his millionaire friend from Palm Beach, in November 1950. He was joking, of course—about the golf and the girls and the serious business. He played golf every day he could, which was every day of the week now that he’d retired from business. He had no trouble finding partners. His children all played golf, except for Rosemary, and visited Palm Beach during the holidays. When they weren’t around, he played with “the Commish,” Joe Timilty, who had virtually moved in after being denied reappointment as police commissioner; or with Arthur Houghton, who after his resignation from his position in Hollywood and the death of his wife was free to spend long periods with Kennedy in Palm Beach. Nothing pleased Kennedy more than a day with his buddies golfing or at the baseball park or the racetrack (Hialeah in the winter and Saratoga in August). “That’s one thing about Houghton and me,” he joked with Lucius Ordway, “women have never had any effect on our lives—we’re men’s men!”
