IT’S OPEN WARFARE
His spat with Alex Salmond prompted Donald Trump to buy Turnberry. So could he f inally now achieve his golfing dream?
IN days gone by when Donald Trump visited the land of his mother Mary’s birth, all the superlatives would be directed to a coastal stretch of land just north of Aberdeen. Here, among the sandbanks the tycoon poetically christened The Great Dunes of Scotland, he was building the finest golf course anywhere in the world.
It would, of course, eclipse all the best courses Scotland already had to offer – St Andrews, Muirfield, Troon, Carnoustie, Turnberry...
In fact, why were we even talking about these places? The ‘championship’ course at Trump International Golf Links, Scotland, would outstrip all on the planet.
Ah, how fickle the affections of the billionaire property mogul as fresh trophies hove into view. Speaking in his newly-acquired Turnberry Hotel this week – as his Trump-branded helicopter purred out on the lawn – the 68-year-old did admit that his Aberdeenshire course was a ‘masterpiece’.
But the Ailsa course at Turnberry – or Trump Turnberry as we must now learn to call it – is ‘the greatest canvas there is in all of golf, no matter where you go in the world’. And, he vowed: ‘We’ll make it even better.’
So the New Yorker has a fondness for hyperbole. No sentence seems complete without it. Facing the Scottish Press this week, for example, Mr Trump claimed he had been speaking to the ‘very, very higher-ups’ in the golf world before correcting himself upon remembering it was, of course, ‘the highest of the higher-ups’.
But there is a simple reason why Turnberry, on the west coast, is suddenly the favoured project while his east coast golfing venture languishes in the toy box. And it is not all to do with his spat with Alex Salmond over offshore ‘windmills’.
Turnberry can deliver The Open Championship to Mr Trump’s doorstep. While Mr Trump insists it would be a ‘great honour’ to host Britain’s only major tournament in world golf, it is an honour which his ego surely demands.
In the United States, he is already actively chasing the US Open and the US PGA for one of his American courses.
In Scotland, Turnberry is already on the rota for The Open – something which, regardless of its quality, may take longer for his Aberdeenshire course to achieve than the tycoon has years left. As far back as 2006, when the property developer bought the Menie Estate in Aberdeenshire, his stated ambition was to one day host The Open.
His ‘field of dreams’ then was an area of environmentally sensitive coastline near Balmedie – but his strategy was idealistic, even naïve.
If he built two golf courses, a fabulous eight- storey hotel, a clubhouse, 950 holiday homes and several dozen luxury lodges, he reasoned, The Open would come. It would have to. The Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews (R&A), which decides on locations for the championship, would bite off his hand to stage it over his course.
Eight years on, one golf course at his Aberdeenshire complex is complete and everything else is on hold while Mr Trump goes toe to toe with the Scottish Government over its approval of 11 giant offshore wind turbines within sight of his resort.
None of the promised infrastructure around the championship course is in place and the tycoon insists he will spend no more money there until the threat of the wind turbines is removed.
But, in the eight years since Mr Trump pledged to spend £ 1billion on creating the world’s finest golfing experience in Aberdeenshire, he has accumulated valuable knowledge about how golf works in this country. It works slowly. Even if his Aberdeenshire
project had not been mired in controversy from the beginning – dividing the community, enraging environmentalists, infuriating neighbours and ultimately becoming embroiled in a wind farm war – few of the so-called ‘higher-ups’ in golf believe it could have hosted The Open before Mr Trump was a very old man indeed.
Contrast Mr Trump’s dealings of eight years ago with R&A chief executive Peter Dawson and the pair’s dealings today.
Back then, the American took a helicopter to St Andrews to buttonhole the club boss about bringing a major championship to his Aberdeenshire course.
The suave Mr Dawson elegantly walked the tightrope between encouragement and evasiveness – informing the billionaire that due process would have to be followed before such an eventuality as The Open arriving at Menie ever transpired.
Mr Trump walked out of the meeting in St Andrews and told waiting journalists: ‘He promised me The Open Championship in three years!’
TODAY, remarkably, the impetuous Trump – scourge of young entrepreneurial wannabes on the US version of The Apprentice and author of Think Big And Kick Ass In Business and in Life – refers to the R&A boss with something approaching deference.
‘I have a great regard for Peter Dawson and the R&A,’ Mr Trump said this week.
‘They love Turnberry, they have made that clear to me. Prior to buying Turnberry, I called the R&A about the place. They love what I will do to the venue.’
Holding forth in the splendour of the 1906 Restaurant at the Turnberry Hotel, Mr Trump said it was to Mr Dawson that he turned for advice as soon as his £36million deal to buy the property from Dubai-based Leisurecorp was complete. ‘I said, “Peter, I just bought Turnberry. Who do you recommend?” Because, as great as the course is, we can do things to even make it better. Peter Dawson recommended Martin Ebert.’
The inference was clear. Mr Trump was so concerned to ensure he did nothing to the Ailsa course which would affect i ts approval rating with the R&A that he has hired the body’s favoured golf course architect. All changes, he says, will have the nod from the R&A before they are made.
The egotist in Mr Trump is even prepared to live with Mr Dawson’s preference for simply the word Turnberry – rather t han Trump Turnberry – being engraved on the famous claret jug next to t he winner’s name when The Open next swings the Ailsa course’s way.
‘The trophy will be just “Turnberry”,’ said a momentarily-deflated Mr Trump. ‘Unless we can convince him.’
For his part, Mr Dawson has managed to dampen speculation that the controversial American businessman’s takeover of the sacred tract of golfing real estate may be enough to see it quietly dropped from The Open rota.
‘We don’t have any difficulty with it, whatsoever,’ Mr Dawson said.
‘Turnberry is a great favourite among the players and it’s on The Open rota for sure. Donald Trump is investing in golf properties in Great Britain and Ireland and must have great faith in the future of the game, which is very heartening from a businessman of his stature.’
The new Trump strategy f or reeling in The Open and relishing the kudos of owning the whole shebang – tournament course and iconic hotel overlooking the 18th hole – appears to be paying dividends.
True, the tycoon can take no credit here for building the course or the stately, Edwardian property which complements it, but the enhancements scheduled to take place between now and Open showtime will, naturally, be the last word in style – Trump style. ‘That’s what we do,’ said Mr Trump as he i nvited number two son, Eric Trump, to say a few words on how wonderful the hotel was going to be.
It became clear rather quickly that Mr Trump junior, executive vice president of development and acquisitions at t he Trump Organization, had been entrusted with overseeing this £100millionplus side of the project personally.
‘Every crown moulding, every chandelier is going to be the best in the world,’ declared the 30-year-old chip off the old block. He had clearly been paying attention.
‘That’s our singular goal. That is what we do.’
SENIOR hotel employees wore their most excited expressions as their new boss went on: ‘We’re gonna have a blast doing this.’ And then, touchingly, we heard the story of Dad buying Turnberry from the son and heir’s perspective.
‘ When we f i rst heard about Turnberry the twinkle that I saw in his eye, the excitement I saw in his eye when we first looked at this asset was something I really hadn’t seen before. He is so proud of this place. We are going to have so much fun with this place.’
He continued: ‘I can see the joy in having this in his eyes when I look at him. Owning Turnberry is something that he truly deserves. There is no person in the world that will make this place better and I say that from the bottom of my heart.’
And a word, too, for the staff whose livelihoods depend on the decisions the Trump family make at Turnberry.
‘We do everything as a family – the many hundreds of employees who work here are now part of that family so I welcome them all on board.’
If there was nervousness among the employees in the room they disguised it well.
And if, among the community of Turnberry and the golfers from across the world who visit to pit their skills against the Ailsa course, there are those with reservations about the arrival of Mr Trump, they are keeping them to themselves at the moment. ‘The response has definitely been more favourable to him than it was in Aberdeen,’ said Walter Douglas, who works in property maintenance.
‘The fact is the course is already here so there is no building to do and no residents in the way.
‘Hopefully he is just going to improve on what’s already here. The hotel certainly needs some improvements. It has been in decline a bit in recent years.’
Colin McRobbie, who travelled from his home in South yorkshire to play the Ailsa course for the first time, said: ‘With Trump’s influence and money, I’m sure he will get to host The Open here, which is great because it’s a fantastic course. I walked it during the last Open in 2009.’
But how long until the tournament returns?
This week the R&A confirmed that Royal Birkdale would host the 2017 Open while it will return to Carnoustie in Angus in 2018. The hosts of the 2015 and 2016 Opens will be St Andrews and Troon respectively.
So will 2019 be Trump’s big year? not necessarily. While some had tipped the tournament to return there a decade after its last visit, there now appears strong competit i on f r om Royal Portrush in northern Ireland, which last staged The Open in 1951.
I f , as widely supposed, the tournament returns to St Andrews in 2020, what will be the temperature r eading on Mr Trump’s patience as approaches his 75th birthday?
He claims he can wait. ‘I want to make this thing so perfect before anything happens,’ he told journali sts. ‘ I’d rather take my time. Hopefully, I’ll still be around when the work is completed. But I’d rather get it right, and we have some incredible things to discuss with the R&A.’
new best friend Peter Dawson, on the hand, will not wait. He will step down after 16 years at the helm of the game’s governing body in 2015.
Who knows who will replace him – or how he or she will react to the inimitable overtures of the new owner of Trump Turnberry.