South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is practising golf to prepare for future meetings with US president-elect Donald Trump. NBC News reported that South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol “got out his golf clubs for the first time in eight years and resumed his golf practice” as he prepares to meet Trump in person. “A lot of people close to President Trump told me that we will have good chemistry,” Yoon told a press conference, after congratulating Trump by telephone on his win.
The report stated Yoon and Trump had a phone call for 10 minutes after the election and they “agreed that we should meet in person soon.” According to the presidential office, this marks the first time in eight years, since 2016, that Yoon has resumed playing golf. He reportedly began practicing after receiving advice to prepare for interactions with the next U.S. president.
Trump’s love for golf is well-storied. He personally owns about 12 percent of golf courses in the US and elsewhere. Even last Sunday he was spotted playing golf with his granddaughters Kai Trump and Chloe Trump. Later, Elon Musk too joined them.
The fairway has been fertile ground for discussing trade and diplomacy. The late Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, who played five rounds of golf with Trump, including one just nine days after Trump’s election in 2016, had forged a warm rapport thus. He gifted Trump gold-plated golf clubs, and Abe was famously seen falling into a golf bunker while playing with Trump during his visit to Japan in November 2017. In his first term, Trump had invited several heads of states to retreats in golf properties. According to a Washington Post report, he played an estimated 261 rounds of golf over the course of his first term, that is a round every 5.6 days.
