With the passing of the dictator Kim Jong Il, the world lost one of the greatest golfers ever to play the game. In 1994 he played the Pyongyang course in North Korea and shot the amazing score of 34, 38 under par, on the 7700 yard golf course which is longer than any PGA tournament layout. He had eleven holes in one that day. According to the press release this was his first round of golf and it seems that after that he retired from the game. Most have scoffed at this achievement as laughable propaganda, but I have noticed that Americans are often suspicious when significant sport milestones are accomplished by foreign athletes. I may be naïve but I have done careful research and have come to the conclusion that this report of stupendous golfing skill may in fact be true.

I first set out to determine if any people named Kim were bona fide golfers. I checked the roster of the Ladies Professional Golf Tour and to my surprise I found these names: Birdie Kim, Christine Kim, I.K. Kim, Mi Hyun Kim, Mindy Kim, Song-Hee Kim, and Yeo Kyeong Kim and on the men’s tour Anthony Kim and K.T. Kim, not to mention the legendary amateur Hyo-Joo Kim and the Korean golf secretary Doong Wook Kim, so it’s not inconceivable that the supreme martinet could have had some exceptional golfing genes.

Rumors abound that there were some excellent golfers amongst his close relatives particularly Kim Goh Loh and Kim Noh Duph but I was unable to locate any of their score cards. I do have documents indicating that some of the players in the politburo were of questionable ability; Kim Duc Soon was known for his wild drives off the tee, Kim Yip Put was shaky on the greens, and Kim Yuh Suk was a high handicapper. Kim So Il showed promise but was quite sickly and has disappeared from view. Kim Hu Yap was imprisoned for whispering during the great one’s back swing and of course there was Kim Kan Poo who confessed, regrettably under torture, that he was a crappy golfer. My investigation could find no evidence that the great leader was a kin to any of these Kims.

Some of the claims made by the North Korean officials may have been related to garbled translation and miscommunication rather than hyperbole. On the fourth hole, when the porky chieftain was asked if he wanted a bit of quiche prepared by his French chef Kim Di Jong, he replied,” I’ll have a whole one”. Similarly the two small capons that he ate at the ninth and tenth holes may have been misconstrued for birdies. The three consecutive chocolate donuts that he devoured on fifteen, sixteen and seventeen—-expertly baked by the American expatriate Dunc Kim— may have been mistakenly counted in the eleven single tallies. On the very next day he played the devilishly difficult miniature golf complex, Pyongyang Putt Putt, and the hole in one through the windmill on the sixth, and the minus five that he achieved on the eighteenth by putting into the clown’s nose could have been inadvertently transferred to the official score.

My diligent disquisition on some of the other dictator golfers found that none of them came close to the abilities of Kim Jong Il. In 1938 Stalin went on a golfing trip to Scotland with seven of his generals and to his dismay he ended up losing money on the two ruble Nassau that they had wagered. The following week Generals Menshnikov, Bolotnikov, Guslyakov, Dologrukov, Luskutnikov, Yermalnikov and Pischalnikov were driving pebbles into Lake Baikal in central Siberia. I believe Hitler abandoned golf early in his career when brown shirts did not pass the dress code at the local country club. When Saddam Hussein was found in his hiding place, dazed, disheveled and disoriented by the American military, the only cogent remark he was heard to utter was that living in the bunker had much improved his sand shots.

I therefore rest my case as to the validity of this fantastic round by the supreme leader. We have no news about his son Kim Jong Un but it’s been whispered that he is nicknamed the Un-Tiger so we may be hearing from him soon. In concluding this communication, I must disclose for the sake of journalistic transparency that when I googled Kim 38, I came across the 38 double D’s of Kim Kardashian and after careful studies of those images, I can honestly state that they are in no way connected to the current report.