According to the Kyunghyang Shinmun and others, Ju Jin-woo held a press conference at the National Assembly on the 11th and claimed that President Lee was at the Taereung golf course with his family on the 10th, when the ceiling of a commercial building in Daegu's Buk District collapsed. Financial News (fnnews) quoted Ju as saying a motorcade believed to be the presidential security detail was seen entering the course and leaving at about 4:49 p.m.

Ahead of the press conference, the Blue House unusually released the president's private schedule first. According to News1 and Financial News, it acknowledged the visit, said the president was briefed on the collapse on site, and spoke by phone with acting National Police Agency chief Kim Jong-cheol to confirm casualties and the extent of injuries. It said he then ordered the agencies concerned to rescue people and handle the aftermath quickly.

The Blue House explanation and the ruling camp's logic

The Blue House said private schedules are in principle not disclosed but were made public this time, as an exception, to avoid needless controversy. It also expressed regret that a non-public private schedule was being used in political attacks. As far as this paper could verify, the core of its explanation is that the reporting chain worked even on a holiday and the president gave instructions immediately.

Democratic Party spokesperson Cho Kye-won, in Financial News's account, said the president needed to visit the course in connection with diplomacy with U.S. President Trump, and asked the public to understand it as preparation for U.S. diplomacy. The report offers no further confirmation that such preparation took place, so this should be treated as a claim by the ruling side.

The opposition's lines of attack

Ju demanded that the response record be disclosed hour by hour. He also noted that the president's schedule had drawn controversy during the National Information Resources Service fire and the disappearance of naval personnel, calling this the third time. The opposition's concern is less golf itself than whether the schedule and situational awareness on the day of a major accident are transparently disclosed.

The accident occurred at about 10:16 a.m. on the 10th in Daegu's Buk District, where a ceiling structure collapsed at a sales event for seniors, injuring dozens; reportedly no one was seriously hurt. The exact time the president was briefed and the content of his instructions have been disclosed only to a limited extent, and the dispute may shift to whether a response timeline is released.

A third-party view: balancing a leader's private holidays against disaster-response responsibility is not uniquely Korean. In the United States, maintaining communications and briefing channels during a weekend round of golf is generally taken as a given, and criticism tends to focus on the speed and explanation of the response rather than the golf. Japanese and Taiwanese media tend to stress a leader's on-the-ground presence and swift messaging during disasters. This paper does not declare either side right, but believes that first establishing a factual timeline would reduce draining partisan disputes in Korea.