I played Trump National in Palos Verdes last year and to add insult to injury, actually managed to wade through his book "Think Big and Kick Ass" last week.
Here was my review of Trump National:
I'm of two minds about this because there is a time and place for everything in golf from Prestwick in a five club wind to Trump National at the other end of the spectrum. I struggle to separate the golf course in my mind from the overall "Trumposity" of this place. I make much of my living in NYC, so I am not exactly a California neophyte to this man's long shadow of self-aggrandizing drivel. Obviously, P.V. is a beautiful place, which gives it instant points in the aesthetic department. However, the round begins with a plaque on the first tee, enumerating how many millions were spent on the golf course, including the 18th, which they claim is the most expensive hole ever built. That plaque also crows that Trump National is the greatest course in California - which is enough to make a dog vomit. Yet, where this sort of ostentatious hyperbole would normally come off as over-reaching and vulgar, somehow we give The Donald a pass because even *he* does not believe his own bullshit.
The golf course is a jam job in some respects, with many terrace fairways that drop off on one side to oblivion. The rough is high enough in places to make the USGA blush, which is quite a trick. On one hand, it is necessary here and there to stop balls from rolling off the narrow fairways, yet there are some spots where it is obvious where form "Trumps" function and this really detracts in my mind to the overall strategic amusement of the golf course. Putting surface contours were good and conditioning was letter perfect.
The Donald was actually on property the day we were there and my overriding impression was that everyone from the head professional all the the way to the kid who cleans the carts was absolutely terrified - as if the the entire staff were contestants on The Apprentice.
His book was pure bullshit. A pompous, shameless exercise is self-congratulatory, bloviated pap that only a carny's mark would fall for. Good thing the book was given to me by a man with a sense of the absurd. Hey, think big and kick ass! Borrow a 100 million from the bank and now you got them over a barrel baby!
The Scots must be insane to let that obnoxious puffer fish anywhere near their sacred land.