Trump International Golf Links

[Brian_Ewen]

http://www.trumpgolfscotland.com/files/Trump%20Open%20Conditions%20of%20Entry%20and%20Play%202013.pdf

[Adam Lawrence]

http://www.trumpgolfscotland.com/files/Trump%20Open%20Conditions%20of%20Entry%20and%20Play%202013.pdf

If you want to use a trolley you have to take one of theirs? Bizarre.

[David_Tepper]

"If you want to use a trolley you have to take one of theirs? Bizarre."

Adam L. -

I am afraid that is similar to what you find at some private golf clubs in the U.S. While a number of private clubs are now allowing trolleys (3-wheel push carts) to be used, these clubs have their own fleet of trolleys and the members are expected (required!) to use them if they do not want to carry. Some clubs provide the trolleys gratis, other clubs charge a nominal fee.


DT

[Adam Lawrence]

"If you want to use a trolley you have to take one of theirs? Bizarre."

Adam L. -

I am afraid that is similar to what you find at some private golf clubs in the U.S. While a number of private clubs are now allowing trolleys (3-wheel push carts) to be used, these clubs have their own fleet of trolleys and the members are expected (required!) to use them if they do not want to carry. Some clubs provide the trolleys gratis, other clubs charge a nominal fee.


DT

I know, but it is _unheard of_ in the UK...

[David_Tepper]

"I know, but it is _unheard of_ in the UK..."

Adam -

Yes, I am well aware of that.

DT

[Brian_Ewen]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/donald-trump-fails-to-deliver-on-golf-resort-jobs-pledge-8693854.html

Donald Trump fails to deliver on golf resort jobs pledge
First Minister Alex Salmond is left in the rough over  ‘Great Dunes of Scotland’ investment
JOHN SWEENEY   SUNDAY 07 JULY 2013
The American entrepreneur Donald Trump has failed to deliver on pledges to create thousands of jobs through a supposed billion-pound investment that were key to planning approval for his hugely controversial Scottish golf resort, an investigation has found.

By his own admission, Mr Trump has created no more than 200 of his promised 6,000 jobs and is thought to have spent just £25m on the scheme while bulldozing environmentally sensitive areas of the Scottish coast, according to a new analysis of the scheme’s finances.

The striking shortfall between Mr Trump’s pipe dream and the realities of the venture, uncovered by the BBC’s Panorama team, leaves Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, facing questions over his judgement in intervening – while Mr Trump continues to be under scrutiny himself concerning business links in the United States with a violent ex-convict who has previous Mafia links.

The row centres on Mr Trump’s ambitions to create a vast golfing complex in an area he has rebaptised the “Great Dunes of Scotland”, claiming to create the best course in the world but greatly angering some residents. They had resisted the plans drawn up by Mr Trump – whose signature “You’re fired!” catchphrase from the original US Apprentice TV show has been adopted by Sir Alan Sugar in the British version.

As local MSP, Mr Salmond personally rang Scotland’s chief planning officer while he was with the Trump lawyer after the plan was rejected by the local infrastructure committee in his Aberdeenshire constituency.

The man leading Scotland’s drive for independence has seen little political or economic reward for his efforts, however. Mr Trump’s plans for the Menie estate should have created thousands of jobs by building two golf courses, a five-star 450-bed hotel,  500 homes and 950 short-term lets.

To date, Mr Trump’s own representatives put the number at only 200 new jobs – and Panorama estimates on the basis of the latest accounts (to December 2011), that only £25m has been spent with just one golf course and a temporary clubhouse to show for it so far.

In 2008, Mr Salmond boasted: “The balance of opinion among people in the north-east of Scotland and among my constituents is very strongly in favour. And that’s because we can see the social and economic benefits.

“I mean, 6,000 jobs across Scotland, 1,400 local and permanent jobs here in the north-east of Scotland – that’s a very powerful argument which outweighs the environmental concerns.”

Mr Salmond admits that the lack of progress on the Trump estate has been a major setback given his support. He told Panorama: “I’m disappointed that the plans haven’t gone ahead as originally envisaged, I hope they will do.”

Mr Trump’s failure so far to deliver his vision does not appear to have harmed his own interests. It is believed the planning permissions for the land have helped boost the value of his Scottish estate, bought for £7m, by at least £100m.

This has led some to suspect that  Mr Trump may have embarked on the scheme with an eye to the land’s potential resale value. But Mr Trump says the reason the development has stalled is the prospect of 11 offshore wind turbines being built within sight of his golf courses. He claims Mr Salmond had assured him such a scheme would not go ahead – he has since labelled Mr Salmond “Mad Alex” and launched legal action to prevent the wind farm being built.

Mr Salmond rejects Mr Trump’s claims about a wind farm promise, adding that no investor can expect to dictate Scotland’s energy policy.

Asked whether he was calling the First Minister a liar, Mr Trump said: “Maybe he has a bad memory.”

The First Minister’s intervention in the planning application came in December 2007 – the same month as news broke in the US that one of  Mr Trump’s associates was connected to the Mafia – but the blowback for the two men continues to the present.

Back then, Mr Trump had a problem. The plans for the golf complex had been blocked by a key committee of Aberdeenshire Council.

Mr Salmond, who serves as the local constituency MSP as well as leading the devolved assembly in Holyrood, met Mr Trump’s team in an Aberdeen hotel on a Monday, phoned Scotland’s chief planner and then handed the phone to Trump’s lawyer. The chief planner and the lawyer arranged to meet the next day. That same day, the Scottish government “called in” Aberdeenshire’s decision to block the Trump plan. It was ultimately overturned by ministers after a public inquiry.

Jed Griffiths, former president of the Royal Town Planning Institute and in planning for 40 years, was asked if he had come across a case like it. “Never, not in my entire career,” he said.

A Scottish parliamentary committee in 2008 found the “call in” technically competent but judged  Mr Salmond’s actions “extremely unwise” and “cavalier”, displaying “exceptionally poor judgement” – and to suggest any MSP could set up a meeting at 24 hours’ notice “stretches credibility to breaking point”.

Mr Salmond told Panorama: “I was there as the constituency member of the Scottish Parliament. I’d no government decision role in the planning. I was taken out of that when it was a project in the constituency. No, I don’t regret it.”

‘Panorama: The Trouble With Trump’ will be shown on BBC1 on Monday night at 8.30pm

[Patrick_Mucci]

Brian,

Were the 6,000 jobs forecast:

1.     at the completion of the entire project,
2.     at the begining of the project
3.     or at selected intervals during construction of the entire project ?

How do the 200 currently employed individuals and their families feel about the project

[Ally Mcintosh]

Another total non-story...

[Mark Chaplin]

There is a massive wind farm off the Kent coast which is hardly noticeable from the golf courses, I think Trump is using this as a smoke screen.

Pat - whilst 200 people maybe happy to have work, but the permissions were bulldozered through on the back of the economic benefits which haven't materialised. The damage may come when another developer in another part of the country has a sound plan but the powers that be will be extremely sceptical to believe anything another golf developer says. And rightly so.

Even 200 full time jobs seems excessive for an 18 hole course and temporary clubhouse. I'm guessing they need an extensive security set up, which isn't really golf.

[Brian_Ewen]

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/so-where-is-the-worlds-greatest-golf-course-ask-donald-trump-8695783.html

Monday 8 July 2013
So where is “the world’s greatest golf course”? Ask Donald Trump
The entrepreneur has failed to create thousands of jobs through a supposed billion-pound investment that were key to approval for his hugely controversial golf resort
Like the Buddha’s birthplace in Nepal, or the Hajj in Mecca for Muslims, any golfer’s pilgrimage to Scotland has to include certain shrines:  St Andrews, Turnberry, Carnoustie, Royal Troon, and the Home of the Honourable Company at Muirfield. The games’ history and legends are to be found in these places, and the key to their historical importance is their association with the greatest prize in golf – The Open Championship.

While Donald Trump and property ethics go together like Glengarry Glen Ross and The Nun’s Story, the billionaire salesman knew enough to touch base with the Royal and Ancient (R&A)  in St Andrews seven years ago when he flew to Scotland to discuss plans for his $1 billion dollar Aberdeenshire resort. He arrogantly told the secretary of golf’s ruling body, Peter Dawson, that  he was  going to build “the greatest golf course in the world” on the 2,000 acre Menie Estate.

Legend has it that Dawson, not a man easily conned, described the meeting as “interesting”. He asked Trump what architect he had in mind? When Trump said he’d  brought his own American designer, who had no experience of links land in Scotland, the R&A quietly suggested their choice, the Open specialist, Martin Hawtree. Trump duly obeyed.

If you intend to spend the GDP of a small country on two golf courses, a  luxury hotel, and million-dollar villas, you need regular plane loads of American and international golf pilgrims on their once-in-a-lifetime visit to the home of golf, to come to you and open their wallets. And to do that Trump needed his course on the Open rota.

Alex Salmond, himself a golfer, should have known that. Instead Scotland’s First Minister, seems to have lacked Dawson’s instinct to spot a fantasy sales pitch, and went out of his way to assist the by-passing, twisting and mangling of every planning regulation and environmental  interest in the tartan rule book in order to give Trump what he wanted.

Seven years down the line, Dawson and the R&A’s credibility, as expected, remains intact. Trump on the other has failed to muscle his way on to The Open list, and is said to have been furious when Dawson recently played down the chances of the PR-styled “Great Dunes of Scotland” ever hosting the great championship.

“Let’s see how it matures. I would say it has a long way to go,” said Dawson last year. In Florida or Chicago, say that to property developer and all hell will break lose.

So no Open, no real need for the £280m hotel, or the multi-million pound villas over-looking fairways not walked by Tiger Woods and not seen on US or Far East TV screens. Scotland’s First Minister, promised 6,000 jobs by ‘The Donald’ has been hung out to dry. In the words of Glengarry Glenn Ross, Trump arrived with bum leads and Salmond bought in, and has been left with only a wind-farm excuse for nothing happening.

So where is “The world’s greatest golf course”? That depends on where you ask. In Georgia, USA, it’s Augusta National. In Northern Ireland it’s Royal County Down; in New Jersey it’s certainly Pine Valley. And in Scotland ? Ask inside R&A in Scotland – and it sure as hell isn’t owned by Donald Trump.

[Thomas Dai]

http://www.trumpgolfscotland.com/files/Trump%20Open%20Conditions%20of%20Entry%20and%20Play%202013.pdf

If you want to use a trolley you have to take one of theirs? Bizarre.

So an 18-hole Men's Open at Trump on 21st Sept. £100.00 plus another £97.50 if you fancy a practice round. Must play off 12 hcp or less and can't use your own trolley/electric trolley. Interesting. Curious to know what the entry will be like, especially as the Royal Aberdeen Men's Open is the next day, and that's already full, and has been full for ages.

As to the 200 jobs being created, like when? Let's just assume 10 men/women to maintain the current course, plus 10 in the clubhouse/admin, plus 15 working on the new course. That leaves 165. Presumably they must all be security staff and spin doctors.

All the best

[Niall C]

Both the TV programme and the Independant article are aimed at giving Salmond a kicking. Not really to do with Trump, he's just incidental to the real intent. All to do with next years independence vote.

From a professional point of view I'm interested to seeing who valued the scheme at £100m. Another of todays papers suggested it was Jed Griffiths, the former planning chief, also quoted in the first press blurb. If that's so thats like having a plumber quote for rewiring your house, or Coore & Crenshaw to advise on the build costs for the hotel. Should be worth watching but sadly not as a real piece of journalism, just a hatchet job on a politician who should have known his support for Donald was likely to come back and bite him.

Niall

[Ally Mcintosh]

Both the TV programme and the Independant article are aimed at giving Salmond a kicking. Not really to do with Trump, he's just incidental to the real intent. All to do with next years independence vote.

Niall,

Is this the Panorama programme that showed on BBC1 tonight?.... Forgot to record it and we don't get iplayer over here unfortunately... Did anyone see it?

[Paul Gray]

Interesting programme.

Nothing really new to note however, other than Trump getting all huffy and ending the interview when his business dealings with the mafia were raised.

I'm not even convinced that Salmond came out of it too damaged. It would be fair to say that he was impressed by the promise of so many jobs but I couldn't help feeling that the whole wind turbine debacle, a factor Trump now claims to be fundamental to his somewhat curtailed plans, was never on the table when the two were talking.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat - whilst 200 people maybe happy to have work, but the permissions were bulldozered through on the back of the economic benefits which haven't materialised. The damage may come when another developer in another part of the country has a sound plan but the powers that be will be extremely sceptical to believe anything another golf developer says. And rightly so.

Mark, that's a hypothetical argument, the fact is that 200 jobs have been created and now he's building another 18 hole course which will create more jobs.

If night follows day, a hotel should follow completion of the second course.
And with the hotel, more jobs.

To a degree, it reminds me of Streamsong a few thousand miles removed.

What I don't understand is, if he's continuing with the project as planned, what's the beef ?

Even 200 full time jobs seems excessive for an 18 hole course and temporary clubhouse.
I'm guessing they need an extensive security set up, which isn't really golf.

A job is a job and a job is better than no job.

I don't understand why there's resistance and animosity when the guy has created a great golf course, is creating another and has created jobs where none previously existed.

What am I missing ?

[Patrick_Mucci]

So an 18-hole Men's Open at Trump on 21st Sept. £100.00 plus another £97.50 if you fancy a practice round. Must play off 12 hcp or less and can't use your own trolley/electric trolley. Interesting. Curious to know what the entry will be like, especially as the Royal Aberdeen Men's Open is the next day, and that's already full, and has been full for ages.

Thomas,

Try paying $ 195+ to play Pound Ridge.
Then, maybe you'll be appreciative of the cost to play Trump

As to the 200 jobs being created, like when? Let's just assume 10 men/women to maintain the current course, plus 10 in the clubhouse/admin, plus 15 working on the new course.


I'd be surprised if there's a green crew of less than 20 at a private club in the Met NYC area.
I'm not familiar with green crews in Scotland, but 10 seems on the light to ultra-light side to me.

Don't know the scale of the clubhouse, but, there's not a private/resort clubhouse in the Met NYC area that employs less than 20.

15 to build a golf course ?
Seems light, but, I'm not familiar with golf course construction in that neck of the woods.
How many were on the crew that built the first course ?

That leaves 165. Presumably they must all be security staff and spin doctors.

Or maybe your assumptions deliberately skewed the outcome !

All the best

[Ulrich Mayring]

It's obvious to any reasonable person that Trump is a manipulative con man, who cannot be trusted and will sell his grandmother if need be. People dealing with him are either completely naive or delusional about their ability to outsmart him. The only way of not losing to Trump is to not play, Mr. Salmond.

Ulrich

[Mark Pearce]

Ulrich,

Alex Salmond is a consummate politician.  Quite possibly the most skilled f all current UK politicians.  It's a little early to declare a winner as between him and Trump, if even remotely appropriate.  Sadly Salmond's skills are wasted on a man with daft policies.

[Mark Chaplin]

Pat you clearly aren't familiar with Scottish golf, 10 green staff is heavy, very heavy.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat you clearly aren't familiar with Scottish golf, 10 green staff is heavy, very heavy.


Mark, you clearly aren't familiar with Trump, 10 green staff is light, very light. 

[Brian_Ewen]

[Mark Chaplin]

Pat you still don't understand it. There was massive opposition to the scheme, Scotland isn't exactly short of golf courses, I don't know about metro NYC nor do I care. I cannot imagine a metro NYC senator taking up parliamentary time and lobbying to have all sorts of laws and regulations ignored or amended to put 200 jobs in a state forest. Elected officials were hook winked and seduced into approving the scheme.

Which politicians went the extra mile to ensure Streamsong was build. How many world class courses are there within 100 miles of Streamsong?

He may have built a good or even great golf course but Scotland has loads of them, the difference is they live in harmony with nature and the locals. They don't bully the small guy or build 20' high earth walls around their houses to remove an "eyesore".

[Thomas Dai]

I see someone recently addressed a response to me on this topic in green ink and bold type. Unfortunately I don't read coloured print nor do I read bold type. I do recall though, the site moderator posting recently about behaviour on the site and highlighting that we ignore someone called 'Pat'.

All the best

[Mark Chaplin]

Thomas I find it all rather amusing.

[Duncan Cheslett]

I'm not particularly drawn to Mr Trump as an individual - he comes across as a grotesque parody of a stereotype of a psychopathic American businessman - but is anything he has done at Aberdeen really any worse or different than the work done in transforming virgin dunesland into golf courses elsewhere down the ages?

Throughout the 19th century areas of links were appropriated for golf throughout the British Isles. Was adequate compensation ever paid to the sheep farmers displaced or was any thought whatsoever given to possible environmental consequences?

Of course not! The local bigwig and his acoloytes fancied a golf course on common land and so built one. They then built a fence around it to keep out the riff-raff.

Mr Trump is simply following in a long tradition. If there is blame to be attached for this project having gone ahead it lies firmly with the planning laws which apparantly can be pushed aside by anyone with sufficient funds and influence.

In a hundred or even fifty years time, the genesis of this course will have been long forgotton, as will have been the name 'Trump'. It will be assessed purely on its merits as a golf course.

As indeed, are all the other classic links courses around our coast, not to mention the inland courses built on environmentally valuable heathland with no thought whatsoever other than for the pleasure of a few wealthy Victorian or Edwardian gentlemen.

A little historical perspective, please...