Sell Turnberry and be a hero, Donald
TTrump’s golfing portfolio is ever more tainted... so few will see on TV a course with the most picturesque scene on the planet
his is a plea to Donald Trump to sell Turnberry. It is time for the fallen US President to convince his investors to put the Ayrshire links on the market.
No doubt it would represent a huge loss on his balance sheet, but at least it would
End of an era: Donald Trump’s Turnberry may still be on the Open rota, but the R&A is unlikely to host its major there deliver a sizeable profit on his golfing legacy.
Let us face it, Trump Turnberry is going nowhere. The R&A has declared it will not take the Open back there “in the current circumstances”. Yes, the course remains on the Open rota, but only in the same way that Gareth Bale is still Zinedine Zidane’s player. As things stand, Turnberry is more likely to stage Glastonbury than the British major.
It is a similar story for all of Trump’s golf clubs across the globe. In January, the PGA of America cancelled the contract to host the 2022 US PGA Championship at Trump National in Bedminster, New Jersey. In 2016, the PGA Tour effectively cut ties by removing the World Golf Championship event from Trump National Doral and relocated it to Mexico, of all places.
The same year, it is understood the European Tour ripped up plans to take the Scottish Open to Trump International Links in Aberdeen. Trump then tried to persuade the circuit to go to Trump Turnberry. Not a chance. As the prefix for these luxury venues, Trump might as well replace his surname with the word “Toxic” – and toss out his fancy family crest for a chemical hazard sign.
For Trump, big-time golf has gone ... and it ain’t ever coming back. Without the exposure of the prime professional tournaments, Trump will never even begin to plug this money drain. Turnberry lost £10million in 2019 alone. The only thing the venue has gained him is hassle. Turnberry was at the centre of at least one resort Congressional investigation into US Defence Department spending and patronage, while only last month a motion was raised at the Scottish Parliament urging ministers to apply for an Unexplained Wealth Order.
Both came to nought, but as the backlash from the Trump presidency intensifies, his golf portfolio is ever more tainted by association. And for the links of Turnberry, that is a crying shame.
The Willie Fernie creation, perched so magnificently on the headland of the Firth of Clyde, has actually been one of Trump’s great success stories. Not economically, of course, but agronomically certainly. When The Daily Telegraph broke the news in 2014 that Trump was buying the “resort”, there were howls of despair. It was as if Peter Stringfellow had purchased the Sistine Chapel.
Trump would surely ruin the Ailsa Course, obliterate its natural beauty and, very likely, put a chandelier on its iconic lighthouse. He did none of that. The crumbling hotel was revitalised and is now worthy of overlooking what, to my mind, is the most picturesque scene on “Planet Golf ”. Trump has only enhanced its mystique.
He employed world-renowned architect Martin Ebert to redesign the Ailsa. In fact, Ebert reimagined it, taking spectacular advantage of a seaside setting that, in some parts, had been almost criminally ignored. A bland back nine was reinvigorated, the previously torpid 18th repositioned to afford one last magical trip along the coastline. Wonder oozes everywhere, but it is the transformation of the “Lighthouse Holes” that stuns most.
Words cannot do justice to the ninth, 10th and 11th. Suffice to say that Amen Corner has a rival as a three-hole enchantress. I guarantee if you play the game and glimpse that clifftop trio, you will want to visit. Except, you will not see it, not at its best in competition on TV anyway. And so Turnberry remains hidden, like a masterpiece in Howard Hughes’s attic.
Only Trump has the power to allow the game its vision. Simply sell up and the R&A will return, regardless of any infrastructure concerns. Sponsors would rush to be connected, TV executives would weep at the visual possibilities and it would soon head every plusfoured bucket list. And golf would ultimately thank Trump for it and for the avid golfer that he is, there can surely be no greater honour. We can but dream.