Pyongyang Golf Event Highlights North Korea’s Curated Image of Leisure
An amateur golf competition in Pyongyang has become the latest example of North Korean state media promoting recreation and improving living standards, even as analysts warn that life in the capital does not reflect conditions across the country.
North Korea has publicized an amateur golf competition in Pyongyang, continuing a recent state-media campaign that presents leisure facilities and recreational activity as signs of improving living standards in the capital.
The autumn competition was held at the Pyongyang Golf Course from Tuesday through Thursday, according to the Korean Central News Agency. More than 40 men and women took part, competing in individual events organized by gender and age as well as in a mixed doubles contest. Images released with the report showed participants playing on the course and watching one another near the greens.
The coverage fits a broader pattern in which North Korean media have highlighted leisure options available in Pyongyang. In September, state media promoted the Mirim Riding Club, emphasizing its daily visitors and facilities for exercise, massage and bathing. Water parks, resorts and other recreational venues have also appeared in official reporting as evidence of development and rising prosperity.
Such coverage offers a carefully selected view of daily life. The facilities featured by state media are concentrated in Pyongyang and are unlikely to represent living conditions throughout North Korea, where access to services, consumer goods and leisure opportunities varies sharply by region and social status. The latest golf event therefore carries a message beyond sport: it presents the capital as orderly, modern and increasingly comfortable.
The publicity comes as available estimates point to several years of renewed economic growth in North Korea. South Korea’s central bank estimated that the North Korean economy expanded 3.5 percent in 2025, after growth of 3.7 percent in 2024 and 3.1 percent in 2023. The Bank of Korea attributed the improvement to expanding cooperation with Russia, increased trade with China and state-led construction. Manufacturing also benefited from demand connected to North Korea’s arms cooperation with Russia.
Those estimates indicate a recovery from earlier contraction, but they do not show that gains have been evenly distributed. Reliable economic data from North Korea remain limited, and highly visible projects in the capital can coexist with weaker conditions elsewhere. The focus on golf and other leisure activities may help reinforce the government’s domestic development narrative while projecting an image of normalcy to foreign audiences.
For Pyongyang residents able to use such facilities, the competition represented a rare organized sporting event outside the country’s better-known mass spectacles and elite athletics. For observers abroad, it also provided another glimpse of how North Korea is using lifestyle coverage to shape perceptions of economic progress without addressing the broader gap between the capital and the rest of the country.