Everyone notes that Barack Obama is an excellent father — even his far right critics! So when he dropped off his first daughter, 19-year-old Malia, off at college, it was clearly going to bring waterworks.

At the Beau Biden Foundation’s golf and tennis invitational at Delaware’s Wilmington Country Club this weekend, he said: “For those of us who have daughters, it just happens fast. I dropped off Malia at college, and I was saying to Joe and Jill [Biden] that it was a little bit like open-heart surgery.”

“I was proud that I did not cry in front of her,” Obama also joked. “But on the way back, the Secret Service was off, looking straight ahead, pretending they weren’t hearing me as I sniffled and blew my nose. It was rough.”

Go to WDEL for the video.