Editor’s note: Fred Funk, one of the game’s most popular players, is competing in his second Presidents Cup this week. The 49-year-old who won THE PLAYERS Championship in March will be writing a diary for PGATOUR.com this week. Here is his first installment.

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Va. -- The White House visit Tuesday night was tremendous. President Bush sure knows how to make an entrance. He came in with his helicopter. We were all on the balcony overlooking the lawn where they landed. He came out by himself and saluted the Marine Corps guy with the helicopter and then he acknowledged us. That was really cool. Then my wife and I had a little one-on-one with him. We also talked with the First Lady, Laura Bush, for about 15 minutes. That was wonderful. We just had a great time.

Fred Funk will be paired with Jim Furyk in Thursday's Foursome matches. (Badz/PGA TOUR/WireImage)

I’m a huge Bush fan so it was neat to meet him and obviously, it was great to go to the White House. The only other time I ever went there was as a Cub Scout when I was growing up here, so it’s been a long time. It’s just a neat feeling to meet him. With all the stuff he has to deal with, he’s still very approachable and friendly. We were hoping as a group, I think, that he was enjoying it. Everybody knows what he’s going through; he gets blamed for everything. You just feel bad for the guy. You sense that he has so many demands on his time he doesn’t have any time to enjoy himself. We asked him that last night. He says about the only time he has to himself is an hour, hour-and-a-half a day to work out. Everything else is either sleeping or doing meetings or something. So it’s a pretty tough life. But it was a great experience. There are a lot of guys who are big supporters of him. I guarantee our whole team loves the guy. I don’t know about the International Team, but our guys love him. They were there, too. There’s a tradition at the White House where you don’t sit with your wife at the table, so we had a mix of the teams and all our wives. It was fun to be with everyone.

Now it’s time to get ready for the competition. I’m going to be playing with Jim Furyk in the alternate shot matches Thursday against Vijay Singh and Mark Hensby. Jim’s a great friend of mine, and a guy whose game I really admire. I just want to be there and help him. This was a huge goal of mine. After I experienced my first Presidents Cup two years ago -- playing for a team and representing your country, well, it’s such a big deal. When people say you won’t know what to expect, it’s going to be really neat, you can’t tell until you’re there -- well, they’re right. You don’t know the feelings and the emotions that you’ll have until you really experience them. I felt that at The Presidents Cup in South Africa. It was such a fulfilling week. Then to make the Ryder Cup last year and get on this team again was amazing -- and it being so close to where I grew up makes it even more special. So it’s a big deal. It’s a really big deal for me. I can’t wait.