One thing about Trump\u2019s visit to Aberdeenshire is that he will have a GREAT opening round<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Police and protestors are ready for Trump\u2019s visit to Aberdeenshire this weekend, where he will open the course at Menie, which is due to be named the MacLeod after his mother and has, the family boasts, \u201cthe largest sand dunes in Scotland\u201d. That might trigger environmentalists, since the ancient links has lost its Site of Special Scientific Interest status as a result of Trump\u2019s development.<\/p>\n
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected to travel north during the visit to bend a knee and watch Trump drive, since the way to the President\u2019s heart is by admiring his swing. One of the things Trump would most like Starmer to bring as a gift is the right to host the Open Championship, which was held last week at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland. When Trump bought the Turnberry course in Ayrshire, Scotland in 2014, it was with the expectation that the Open would follow.<\/p>\n
The Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, Scotland (R&A), which organizes the Open, initially made positive noises and it is believed the course had been earmarked to host the tournament in 2020. Turnberry is undeniably a magnificent course, rated the eighth finest outside the US by\u00a0Golf Digest, and it has hosted four excellent Opens including in 1977, when Nicklaus slugged it out for four days with Tom Watson, and the Open in 2009, when Watson almost won again at the age of 59. It would be a more than worthy venue.<\/p>\n
Then Trump decided to become president, and his controversial comments made people feel uneasy. In 2015, Peter Dawson, the outgoing chief executive of the R&A, said that a bit of time should pass before returning to Turnberry.<\/p>\n
His successor, Martin Slumbers, took a harder line, saying it could not be held there because the focus would be on the course\u2019s owner rather than the golfers. This came after the PGA of America removed the 2022 PGA Championship from Trump\u2019s Bedminster course in New Jersey following the attack on the Capitol in 2021.<\/p>\n
Since then, the position against giving Trump an Open has become more nuanced. Mark Darbon, the new R&A chief executive, says he would \u201clove\u201d the Open to return to Turnberry but while he has discussed it recently with Eric Trump, Donald\u2019s son, there are \u201clogistical challenges\u201d. The course is in the middle of nowhere and the transport links and hotel accommodation can\u2019t cope. Only 120,000 could attend Turnberry in 2009, while 280,000 came to Portrush. Sorry Donald, nothing personal.<\/p>\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/8205786f4a26b018c5b756701b15c24d2200e811.webp.webp\")
Eric Trump in Turnberry, Scotland in 2017\u00a0GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n
A feasibility study, that old favorite for kicking things into the long grass (and the rough can be very long at the Open), has been commissioned to ease the political pressure. If that fails, they can fall back on simple bureaucratic inertia. The next two Opens have been allocated \u2013 Birkdale in 2026 and St Andrews in 2027 \u2013 and it is believed that Muirfield in East Lothian, Scotland, which last hosted an Open in 2013, will be given 2028 as the reward for agreeing to allow women members. The last time three successive Opens were held in Scotland was 1893, so that means we\u2019re looking at 2030, when Trump will be 84 and (presumably) no longer in the White House.<\/p>\n
This may be nudged back even further if there are difficult scenes at the Ryder Cup in late September, to be held in Bethpage, New York, where the fans are notoriously raucous. Trump will surely be there on the tee, a week after his state visit to Britain, having missed the chance to host a Ryder Cup in his first term. It was to be at Whistling Straits, Wisconsin, in 2020, a few weeks before he fought re-election, but was postponed by the pandemic. A US win might have swayed the election for him. He will not miss this Ryder Cup but if it is a rowdy one \u2013 expect no sporting concessions this time \u2013 the R&A may find a new reason to delay a decision.<\/p>\n
One thing that is certain about Trump\u2019s visit to Scotland is that he will have a GREAT opening round. He is a more than decent golfer to judge by footage (though his declared handicap of 2.8 raises eyebrows), but he has never knowingly played badly, certainly not at a club he owns. Two weeks ago, he won the members\u2019 championship at Bedminster yet again, while in 2023 he won a two-day competition at his West Palm Beach course, despite being 600 miles away on the first day. Trump explained that he\u2019d had a brilliant practice round two days before and so submitted that as his Saturday scorecard in absentia, meaning the field began Sunday five strokes behind.<\/p>\n
This performance, Trump declared, proved that he had the \u201cstrength and stamina\u201d to deserve a second term. He certainly has the sneakiness and chutzpah, though he falls a long way behind Kim Jong-il, the Eternal Scratch Champion of Pyong-yang, who famously once had five holes-in-one during a round that was 38 under par. Trump and Kim\u2019s sporting prowess matches that of Vladimir Putin, who has scored eight goals in an ice hockey match three times, and Mao Zedong, who was said to have swum ten miles of the Yangtze in just over an hour.<\/p>\n
It was ever thus with vain leaders, whose sporting boasts are rarely challenged. The Emperor Nero competed at the Olympics in the race for four-horse chariots, steering a vehicle pulled by ten horses. The excessive horsepower meant Nero crashed at the first corner, but he successfully persuaded the judges to award him the laurels since he should have won.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s latest visit to Bedminster put him within sight of Barack Obama in the list of golf enthusiast presidents. Obama played 306 rounds while in office, and Trump is now up to 304 after six months of his second term. During the 2016 election, Trump claimed he would be too busy to play golf as president. He then squeezed in 11 rounds in his first eight weeks. This term, he was back on the course on Day 6. And again on Day 7.<\/p>\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/3206af6e9cbf2b5ab13d1a434773dccc673dfb13.webp.webp\")
Donald Trump watches his granddaughter, Kai Trump, play golf at Trump National Doral Miami in 2022\u00a0GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n
Trump is also not far behind Bill Clinton, the only president whose handicap went down in the White House \u2013 but he has some way to go to beat the top two. Dwight Eisenhower notched up 800 rounds in office, some quite iffy. Bob Hope quipped: \u201cIf Eisenhower slices the budget like he slices a golf ball, the nation has nothing to worry about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Way out in front is Woodrow Wilson, who played every other day during the first world war, including at the Versailles peace conference, but he remained mediocre. As a presidential duffer, he comes behind William Taft, who once recorded a 27 on one hole, including 17 to get out of a bunker, but believed that it was gentlemanly to be honest. \u201cThere is nothing which furnishes a greater test of character and self-restraint than golf,\u201d Taft said.<\/p>\n
Trump takes a different view, which is why it is unsurprising that world leaders now see golf as a tool of diplomacy. Shinzo Abe, the deceased former prime minister of Japan, played five rounds with Trump and in 2016 gave him a $3,700 golden driver.\u00a0Abe did so well out of this that Yoon Suk Yeol, the President of South Korea, took up the sport to help his own diplomatic game. Nigel Farage\u2019s close friendship with Trump may in part be due to this shared interest \u2013 the Reform UK leader says he almost took up a US college golf scholarship \u2013 though Farage\u2019s bad back doesn\u2019t allow him to play any more.<\/p>\n
When Cyril Ramaphosa visited the White House in May, the South African President took with him a pair of major-winning golfers, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, in the hope that it would impress Trump. Alexander Stubb, the Finnish President and a former college golfer in South Carolina, negotiated the purchase by the US of some Finnish icebreakers after he played (and won) a tournament in Palm Beach with Trump as his partner in March.<\/p>\n
That will be the challenge for Starmer when he pays homage. Unlike David Cameron, who rewarded Obama for his Brexit intervention in 2016 with a round at the Grove in Hertfordshire, Starmer can\u2019t fake an interest in golf. He was the first prime minister to reject honorary membership of the Ellesborough golf club near Chequers \u2013 the grace-and-favor countryside residence of Britain\u2019s prime ministers. Perhaps he will bring a star golfer like Sir Nick Faldo with him to swing for Britain.<\/p>\n
Starmer did have a professional golfer in his party\u2019s ranks in Brian Leishman, Member of Parliament for Alloa and Grangemouth, but the Socialist Campaign Group (a left-wing caucus within Britain\u2019s Labour Party) member, who recently lost the whip for rebelling, will surely not play ball. How about the Paymaster General? Nick Thomas-Symonds\u2019s skill with a mashie niblick is unknown, but he was named Nicklaus by a golf-obsessed father. For diplomatic reasons, Starmer may want to allow Trump to say that his course was blessed by a British Nicklaus. Just don\u2019t expect the President to concede any short putts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1969, one of the great acts of sportsmanship occurred at Royal Birkdale golf club in Southport, England,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4106],"tags":[107750,748,19289,32,2826,10524,4321,712,107751,93,79,31172,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-288672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-art-of-the-deal","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-deal","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-golf","13":"tag-pga","14":"tag-ryder-cup","15":"tag-scotland","16":"tag-shinzo-abe","17":"tag-sport","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-starmer","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114909850186689866","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}