Larry Brown Sports

Now that Kim Jong Il has passed away, I am starting to realize that I should have paid more attention to him while he was alive. The ruler of North Korea was truly a remarkable man, and while many stories have been told about him before I never took note of the fact that he was such an incredibly talented sportsman. In addition to giving North Korea’s World Cup teams “regular tactical advice,” Kim Jong Il was also reportedly the most naturally-gifted golfer to ever roam the earth. Here is one of many facts that the Herald Sun shared with us that were at one time printed about Kim Jong Il in North Korea.

In 1994, Pyongyang media reported that Kim Jong-Il shot an amazing 11 holes-in-one to achieve an unprecedented 38-under-par game on a regulation 18-hole golf course – on his first try at golf. Reports say each of his 17 bodyguards verified the record-breaking feat.

Amazing. After all this time of thinking Tiger Woods was the best in his prime and praising Rory McIlroy, we now realize that North Korea’s former leader is likely the greatest golfer to ever live.  For those of you who are skeptical: his 17 bodyguards confirmed it.  That’s 17 people.  Obviously they didn’t just have his best interests in mind.  Most golfers go through life hoping they can experience a hole-in-one. Kim Jong Il got to enjoy 11 in one round.  I’m speechless.

H/T to Off the Bench for calling our attention to this miraculous achievement.

Numerous, unconfirmed reports suggest that there is a country that exists called North Korea. Only a country that is so isolated from the rest of the world can earn itself the nickname, “The Hermit Kingdom,” which, incidentally, was the working title for my unauthorized autobiography. In fact, the country is so insulated from the rest of humanity that any attention-mongering athlete wishing to don a pair of sunglasses indoors at a club has been unable to verify whether Kim Jong-Il’s shades are Prada or RayBans. The horror.

The sporting world gets a chance to come into contact with North Korea every now and then, whenever there is a World Cup, Olympics, or any athletic event where there is some kind of fermented cabbage to be had.

If your summer plans have not included the chance to beat out the sunrise in order to catch the latest action from the Women’s World Cup in — wait for it — bucolic Germany, you have certainly missed out on some spectacles. Well, yes, the usual foolish rhetoric has been spewed from Sepp Blatter; given his last name, it should come as no surprise that FIFA’s president has been prone to emit waste matter. Also, yet another mascot has been wheeled out to cause yet another sports-induced zoological crisis. In South Africa, during the 2010 World Cup, soccer gave us a leopard with green hair, because the Telly Savalas look does not jive with World Cup splendor. The 2011 women’s event mascot resembles a cat conceived during Chernobyl. But, at least, the viewing populace gets to be introduced to countries that perhaps time, and maybe Funk & Wagnalls, forgot. Yes, there really is an Equatorial Guinea, a country which has been dogged by allegations that it used male players to qualify for the Cup. After all, what would a world sporting event in Germany be without at least a few questions of gender validity?

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