by Rick Reilly
Trump Aberdeen is a money pit. According to the required tax papers the club had to file, it lost $4.5 million in 2017. Remember those 6,000 people Trump was going to hire? It employed just 85 in 2017. Salmond now refers to Trump as “a complete and utter nincompoop.”
“It was almost like the whole thing was a dry run for his campaign as president,” Ford says. “He bullied everybody. He started false rumors. Established alternative truths by repetition. Then we watched the [presidential] campaign and it was everything he had done up here in Aberdeen.”
It got worse. Trump found out 11 power-generating windmills were to be placed in the sea half a mile or so from his course and blew a gasket. He said they were so ugly they would spoil his guests’ rounds of golf. Besides, he said, windmills are noisy, don’t work, and kill birds. Salmond was a stone this time. Trump wrote more than a dozen letters to him excoriating him, threatening him, and begging him to kill the windmills. “Your country will become a third world wasteland that global investors will avoid,” he wrote. Salmond didn’t so much as wiggle a toe.
Trump sued. He lost. The windmills are churning out there now. You can’t hear them, but you can see them from the beach, and he’s right, they’re not pretty. Of course, since you can’t see the ocean much from his course, does it matter?
It did to Trump. “I doubt if I’ll ever do business in Scotland again,” he harrumphed.
Two years later, he bought another Scottish course.
In a land where you can’t throw a bucket of birdseed without hitting a great golf course, Trump Turnberry stands out. Since Trump took over in 2014, it’s twice as good as it was. When you throw in the magnificent par-5-length hotel that sits elegantly and high above it, it might be the best golf resort in the entire country. Nearly everything Trump botched in Aberdeen, he’s done perfectly in Turnberry.
A true links course, Turnberry sits on the rocky site of Robert the Bruce’s castle, guarded by a postcard white-and-yellow lighthouse where Robert Louis Stevenson roamed as a child (his dad was the keeper). Turnberry was just fine before Trump, of course. It delivered some of the greatest golf in history, including The Duel in the Sun in 1977 between Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson. Turnberry is a beauty that’s been unlucky in marriage. It’s been owned by the Japanese, the Westin hotel chain, Arabs, just about everybody. “Trump is the first guy who’s made promises to us and then actually delivered,” says Clive Douglas, a former captain of the club. “He came in and bang, bang, bang. He did everything he said he’d do.”
What? No lies, no lawsuits, no feuds?
“No, nothing at all.”
His only mistake? Naming the place after himself. In Scotland, “Trump Turnberry” goes over like “Trump Versailles” would in France or “Trump Rushmore” in America. The name pisses Scots off. “I refuse to say it that way,” says Huggan. “I refuse to put those two words together in my mouth and nobody can make me say it that way.”
When Trump changed the famous lighthouse logo to his own crest and slapped a big “Trump Turnberry” above it, the pro shop merchandise sold like anthrax cupcakes. Finally, somebody convinced Trump to get rid of his logo and go back to the old one without his name. That worked. You go in the pro shop now and you can hardly find a stitch of Trump stuff. “It all hit the clearance sale table,” one Turnberry employee told me. “I got a 200-quid bag for 40!”
That’s just one reason Trump is bleeding money at Turnberry. According to Bloomberg, Trump Turnberry lost $36 million in 2016 against revenues of only $12 million. That debt load doubled from the previous year.
It’s too bad. Turnberry is so much better under Trump. Take the lighthouse. It used to just sit there by the 9th tee, looking a lot like Melania, gorgeous and lonely. There’s even a splendid halfway house at the base of it now and two luxurious guest suites in the top half. I was sitting on the porch of it on the day Trump was to arrive from his chaotic meeting with British prime minister Theresa May in July of 2018. Word was, Eric Trump was ensconced in the suite for the weekend. There were snipers in the turret above. I saw somebody I recognized: Keith Thomas, one of the president’s military aides who carries the “nuclear football,” the satchel that contains the codes for the president to launch a nuclear attack. He didn’t have the satchel with him, though, he had a lemonade. He was admiring the Firth of Clyde and, in the distance, Northern Ireland.
“Sorry about the view,” I said.
He jumped up and practically saluted. “Yes, sir, it is! Never been here before.”
I asked him if his boss would be arriving by Marine One.
“No, sir,” he said. “We’re trying to be low key in Scotland, so he’s coming in by motorcade.”
Well, “low key” is in the eye of the beholder. Trump would be landing in Air Force One at nearby Prestwick Airport, along with a C-17, which carries The Beast presidential limo and other security vehicles, and a third plane full of press and officials, plus a military fighter jet escort or two, plus God knows what else. When they arrived, they’d also find Eric Trump’s helicopter parked garishly on the hotel lawn, with giant letters spelling “TRUMP” on the side.
I couldn’t resist asking Thomas about “the green box,” the Port-O-Let-sized container that’s always with the president—a bombproof, bulletproof tiny fortress they can shove him into if things get hairy. “Does it have food and water inside?” I asked.
He laughed. “Hmmmm. I don’t know, sir. I’ll have to find that out for you.”
Yes, get back to me first thing in the morning.
I asked him how he thought the planned anti-Trump protests would go the next morning. There’d already been some that morning on the road in front (“You’re Not Welcome Here”), and there were more planned all over the nation, including giant ones in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and, of course, Aberdeen and Balmedie.
“I think it will be fine,” Thomas said. “These Scottish people are so nice. Even the protesters are nice. It’s kind of hard to hate them.”
He’s right. Protests in Scotland are just a notch below a picnic. For a solid week in 2016, there was a comedian named Janey Godley who would stand on the road that runs in front of the Turnberry hotel holding up a sign that read: “Trump Is a Cunt.” Each day, the hotel staff would invite her in for lunch and tea. One time, on a freezing, rainy winter day, a man kept marching back and forth on the street, holding up his anti-Trump sign. The guys in the bag room insisted he come inside, warm up, and eat a cheeseburger.
That early evening, the motorcade arrived. There was heavy security everywhere. Trump was having his picture taken on the grand front steps of the hotel with patrons and family when—stunningly—a Greenpeace protester flying a microlight flew right over him, not even 30 feet above, making three loops. How he got past all the military and Secret Service and security aircraft, who knows. He was flying a flag behind him that read: “Trump—Well Below Par.”
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Tim Size, an American from St. Louis who was standing right there. “It was right above us. I thought sure the snipers would shoot him down. He could’ve had a bomb or a gun—anything. But they didn’t. He just flew away. We asked one of the Secret Service guys later why they didn’t shoot. He said, ‘If we’d been back home, we would’ve. But not in Scotland.’”
After a long pause, Secret Service rushed Trump inside the hotel. Once inside, according to two sources who were there, Trump later asked his wife, “What’d the banner say?”
“‘Well below par’,” Melania answered.
“Beautiful!” Trump exulted. “I WANT to be below par!”
Greenpeace protesters do not play a lot of golf.
The next morning, as Thomas predicted, the protesters were everywhere, in the sheep fields and on the roads leading in and out, as they were all over the Scottish nation, with a rage they hadn’t shown to an American president since Nixon, if that. They even wrote messages in the sand at Balmedie in hopes Trump would fly over (“Putin’s Pussy”). He never did.
Admit it. The guy is clever.
As usual, Trump was playing that day in a cart. Trump always plays in a cart. The only problem with that is that, at both Aberdeen and Turnberry, you must have a signed doctor’s letter to take a cart. They want you to walk. Yet there he was.
Despite all the people, protesters, and press around, Trump still cheated.
“I’m shooting him on the second fairway,” says Scottish photographer Stuart Wallace. “And I see a Secret Service agent kick his ball out of the rough. The [agent] was in a buggy up ahead of him and [Trump’s] drive ended up in the rough and he got out of his buggy and kicked it out on the short stuff. Unbelievable.”
Afterward, a Turnberry caddy emailed me. He’d never seen Trump play before. “He had 4 or 5 hacks out of one bunker before hand-wedging it onto the green!”
The next day, after the Trump circus left town, a very pro-Trump Texan came to Turnberry. He took at a look at the obligatory massive flag flapping from the trademark 100-foot pole by the first tee and wrinkled his nose. He was expecting the stars and stripes and wasn’t seeing it, only the white and blue of the Scottish flag.
“Hey,” the Texan asked a caddy, “Is that a new Trump flag or somethin’?”
Give him time.
7
TACKY IS AS TACKY DOES
I only do 10s.
—DONALD J. TRUMP
TRUMP IS NOT JUST a political outlier. He’s a golf outlier. Forget how he plays the game. Just in the simplest politeness of the game, the timeless etiquette of it, Trump seems to have come from another planet.
For instance, he never takes off his hat for the traditional end-of-round handshake, which is considered gentlemanly. He doesn’t take it off inside the clubhouse, either, which is a little golf-gauche. He doesn’t care whose honor it is on the tee box, either. He just steps up first and hits it. He’s not what you’d call a good loser, either.
“I played with him once,” says Los Angeles Times NFL writer Sam Farmer. “And I actually beat him out of $10. He handed me the two fives, but they wouldn’t quite come out of his hand. He held onto them and made me pull. I thought they were going to rip. When I finally got them, he goes, ‘It’s all right. I’ve got a supermodel girlfriend and my own 727, so I’m okay.’”
There’s a famous story about the time Trump lost $50 to a guy at Winged Foot. Trump said he didn’t have any cash. “That’s okay,” the guy said. “I’ll take a check.”
Trump said he didn’t have any checks on him.
“That’s okay, I’ll take a bank draft. I’ll go get it.” So the guy gets in his car and gets a bank draft for $50, brings it back, and Trump signs it. Weeks later, Trump sees him, pissed off.
“You cashed my check!”
“Of course I did.”
“Nobody ever cashes my checks. They frame them!”
This is a man who famously drives his golf cart on greens. To repeat: He drives ON THE GREEN. There is video of him doing it at Trump Bedminster. In golf, that’s the unholiest-of-unholies. Driving your cart on the green is like hanging your laundry in the Sistine Chapel. A green is a tender and delicate thing. Caddies don’t even set their bags on it. Driving on the green leaves tire tracks on the perfect surface that can send your partner’s putt careening off line, not to mention the putts of the 100 players behind you. I’ve met people who were 100% for Trump politically but vow they’ll never vote for him again because he drove on the green. Says one woman, “That’s such a violation!”
“He did it all the time at Doral,” says Joe Santilli, a former member there. “He’d come along with five or six people and play through us, never asking permission, just playing through. And he’d drive his cart right on the green.”
I hear you: It’s his course. He gets to do what he wants. But there’s a line, and driving a cart on a green is about three national parks past it. If you go to a friend’s house for dinner, does that mean he has the right to come out of his bedroom drunk in his half-open bathrobe and plunk himself down on your wife’s lap?
“He drives across tees, too,” says a source inside Bedminster. “The guy walks as little as possible. He gets out, walks two feet, hits, and gets back in the cart.”
Very hard to get your 10,000 steps that way.
Chefs don’t call Michelin asking for an extra star. Actors don’t go on TV saying they deserve an Oscar. And golf course developers don’t beg to be on Top 100 golf course lists.
Except Trump. He begs, bullies, and badgers the magazines that do the ratings. When he’s not happy with the ratings he gets, he’ll rip them out of the magazine, scrawl something nasty on them with a Sharpie—“DISHONEST!”—and mail them to the editor.
Since he unveiled his first course in 1999, Trump International in West Palm Beach, Trump has wheedled, lobbied, and lied ceaselessly hyping them. The higher the rankings, the more he can charge for memberships and guest fees. Rankings, though, are a number he can’t Trump Bump and it drives him crazy.
For instance, he’s said repeatedly that Trump Los Angeles is better than Pebble Beach. Now, understand, Pebble Beach is universally thought of as one of the most beautiful courses in the world. It’s been ranked the best course in the world hundreds of times. It’s held five U.S. Opens, which have been won by no less than Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, and Tiger Woods. For many touring pros, it’s the place they’d play if they only had one round left. So to say Trump Los Angeles is better than Pebble Beach is a family-sized jar of stupid sauce.
Yes, Trump Los Angeles has stunning views of the Pacific, but that’s all it’s got. “It’s a plate of sausages,” says architect Robert Trent Jones, Jr. In golf-design lingo, a “plate of sausages” means it’s laid out like somebody laying sausages all in the same direction, packed onto the platter. I’ve played it. Once was enough. Seventeen holes run parallel to the ocean, back and forth, over and over again, until you feel like you’re on a boot camp march. Only one hole, the first, goes perpendicular. Says golf architect Tom Doak, “Nobody in the world thinks his course is better than Pebble—except Donald Trump.”
It gets so ridiculous at Trump Los Angeles that, no joke, they don’t even like to see the Pebble Beach logo. “I walked in there once wearing a Pebble Beach shirt,” says L.A. golf marketer Robert Ward. “The general manager says, ‘Is there any way you can change your shirt? Mr. Trump really doesn’t like to see that logo.’ I’m not kidding. And Trump wasn’t even around.”
Trump was never on the Wharton debating team, but he employs some masterful rhetorical tricks when flogging his courses. For instance, when Trump lies, he doubles down by making his enemies complicit in his side of the argument. Take, for instance, what he says about his Trump Philadelphia course in Pine Hill, New Jersey, which has the misfortune to be a 10-minute drive from the universally acknowledged and current No. 1 course in the world—Pine Valley (NJ). Being next door to Pine Valley is sort of like being Penelope Cruz’s foster sister. Still, Trump has said, repeatedly, “It is as good as Pine Valley, if not better.… I really believe it. A lot of the people there are saying so. And if you went there, you would say it, too. Everybody that goes there says it.”
(Let’s pause here for the world’s golfers to slap their foreheads in unison.)
I went to Trump Philadelphia and… no, no, a million times no. It’s not in the same galaxy as Pine Valley. Since Golf Digest began ranking courses, no other property has finished No. 1 in America as many times as Pine Valley. Trump Philadelphia, meanwhile, has never made their top 200. It isn’t even ranked in the top 15 courses in the state of New Jersey.
“It’s the same soil!” Trump insists.
BUYER: Why are you charging Park Ave prices for this Hell’s Kitchen tenement building?
TRUMP: Same soil!
Even his buddy
Tom Fazio giggles at this one. “He tells reporters, ‘People are telling me this is better than Pine Valley.’ But he never says who those people are. Do you know who the people are? They’re the people who work for him, like his caddies. He will be like, ‘Hey Mario, don’t you think this is better than Pine Valley?’ And Mario will go, ‘Oh yeah! Much better!’… I honestly think he believes the things he says. He hears himself say it and pretty soon he completely believes it.”
Put it this way, Trump keeps a locker there, but, according to the members and employees I spoke to, hadn’t been there since 2015. If it were better than the No. 1 ranked course in the world, you think he might swing by now and again?
It drives Trump out of his brain when other courses are ranked above his or when his courses don’t make the lists at all. He lies and tells people the reason his courses go unranked is because, “I don’t let the raters on my courses. I don’t want to bother the membership.” But that’s a fat lie. The truth is, he’s dying to get on the lists. It’s a game he can’t control and can’t fudge and can’t buy, so it vexes his sleep.
One night, in March of 2014, an editor and writer at Golfweek named Jeff Babineau answered his home phone. It was Larry Glick, Trump’s right-hand golf man, saying Trump would be calling in five minutes. “Take the call,” Glick instructed.
Trump called. He was hot. Golfweek has two lists: Top 100 Classic (pre-1960) and Top 100 Modern (post-1960). Trump’s new Doral makeover had finished just after the deadline for Golfweek’s 700 to 800 raters to see it. But Trump begged Golfweek to extend the deadline and they gave in. A group of raters were rushed through as a favor for one of the biggest golf developers in the country. So the raters hurried over, heard Trump say, “Doral is the greatest course in Florida!,” played it, huddled together, and ranked it No. 99 on the Modern list. Now, for perspective, there are 15,000-plus golf courses in the United States, and to be recognized in the top 100 is really good. But good is not nearly good enough for Donald Trump. He heard about the 99 and was fried about it.