BALMEDIE, Scotland (AP) \u2014 U.S. President Donald Trump opened a new golf course bearing his name in Scotland on Tuesday, capping a five-day foreign trip designed to promote his family\u2019s luxury properties and play golf.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s go. 1-2-3,\u201d Trump said before he used a golden pair of scissors to cut a red ribbon and fireworks popped to mark the ceremonial opening of the new Trump course in the village of Balmedie on Scotland\u2019s northern coast.<\/p>\n
READ MORE:<\/strong> Trump is getting the world economy he wants \u2014 but the risk to growth could spoil his victory lap<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThis has been an unbelievable development,\u201d Trump said beforehand. He thanked his son Eric for his work on the project, saying it was \u201ctruly a labor of love for him.\u201d Son Don Jr. also was present. Immediately after the opening, Trump, Eric Trump and two professional golfers teed off on the first hole. Trump rarely allows the news media to watch his golf game, though video journalists and photographers often find him along the course wherever he plays. Trump planned to play 18 holes before he arrives back in Washington on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n The overseas jaunt<\/a> let Trump escape Washington\u2019s sweaty summer heat and humidity while questions about the case of Jeffrey Epstein followed him across the Atlantic Ocean. But it added to a lengthy list of ways the Republican president has used the White House to promote his brand.<\/p>\n Billing itself as the \u201cGreatest 36 Holes in Golf,\u201d the Trump International Golf Links, Scotland, was designed by Eric Trump. The course is hosting a PGA Seniors Championship event later this week before it begins offering rounds to the public on Aug. 13. Signs promoting the event were seen all around the course on Tuesday, while temporary signage on the highway guided drivers onto the correct road.<\/p>\n Golfers hitting the course at dawn as part of that event had to put their clubs through metal detectors as part of the security procedures for Trump\u2019s arrival.<\/p>\n The day combined two things close to Trump\u2019s heart: golf and Scotland. His mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was born on the Isle of Lewis and eventually went to New York. She died in 2000 at age 88.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mother loved Scotland,\u201d Trump said Monday during a meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at another of his golf courses, Turnberry, on Scotland\u2019s southern coast. \u201cIt\u2019s different when your mother was born here.\u201d<\/p>\n He appeared to be in such a good mood that he even praised the throng of journalist who had assembled to cover the event, saying there was no \u201cfake news\u201d on the course.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t use the word \u2018fake news\u2019 one time, not one time,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n Trump worked some official business into the trip<\/a> by holding talks with Starmer and reaching a trade framework for tariffs between the U.S. and the European Union\u2019s 27 member countries \u2014 though scores of key details remain to be settled. But the trip has featured a lot of golf, and the presidential visit is sure to raise the new course\u2019s profile.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s assets are in a trust, and his sons are running the family business while he\u2019s in the White House. Any business generated at the course will ultimately enrich the president when he leaves office, though.<\/p>\n Visible from around the new course are towering wind turbines lining the coast, part of a nearby windfarm Trump sued to try to block construction of in 2013.<\/p>\n He lost the case and was eventually ordered to pay legal costs for bringing it \u2014 and the issue still enrages him. During the meeting with Starmer, Trump called windmills \u201cugly monsters\u201d and suggested they were part of \u201cthe most expensive form of energy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI restricted windmills in the United States because they also kill all your birds,\u201d Trump said. \u201cIf you shoot a bald eagle in the United States, they put you in jail for five years. And windmills knock out hundreds of them. They don\u2019t do anything. Explain that.\u201d<\/p>\n Starmer said in the U.K, \u201cwe believe in a mix\u201d of energy, including oil, gas and renewables.<\/p>\n The new golf course will be the third owned by the Trump Organization in Scotland. Trump bought Turnberry in 2014 and owns another course near Aberdeen that opened in 2012.<\/p>\n Trump golfed at Turnberry<\/a> on Saturday, as protesters took to the streets<\/a>, and on Sunday. He invited Starmer, who famously doesn\u2019t golf, aboard Air Force One so the prime minister could get a private tour of his Aberdeen properties before Tuesday\u2019s ceremonial opening.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if you play badly, it\u2019s still good,\u201d Trump said of golfing on his course over the weekend. \u201cIf you had a bad day on the golf course, it\u2019s OK. It\u2019s better than other days.\u201d<\/p>\n Superville reported from Washington.<\/p>\n \n We’re not going anywhere.\n <\/p>\n \n Stand up for truly independent, trusted news that you can count on!\n <\/p>\n
Eric Trump said the course was a \u201cpassion project\u201d for his father.<\/p>\n