Presidential Address

Mike Wilson looks at Trump’s ‘Holy Trinity’ of links courses in Scotland and Ireland and discovers they offer an unrivalled combination of sporting challenge for golfers of all levels of ability, with a fusion of style, comfort and excellence in the hospitality offer that backs-up the golf

Ailsa Course with Trump Turnberry Hotel in distance

Once the weakest opening hole on the Open Championship roster, the 1st has been substantially stiffened, followed by five new holes, the 6th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 14th, with significant alterations to all other holes including the reshaping and positioning of bunkers, new tees and green positions and the softening of green contours to provide for more options for pin positions.

The Ailsa Course at Turnberry has hosted the Open Championship on four occasions, most famously, the memorable 1977, ‘Duel in the Sun,’ when Tom Watson prevailed over Jack Nicklaus in a final day shoot-out between two of the best in the business under a rare Scottish summer sun, Watson almost repeating the feat at the age of 59 over the Ailsa Course in 2009, a story that would have eclipsed the famous Duel in the Sun and, arguably, every other sports story of all time.

Whether politics and Trump’s vituperative remarks demeaning women, migrants, Mexicans and Muslims will prevent his glittering new jewel-in-the-crown from hosting a fifth Open Championship is a matter of speculation.

With St. Andrews certain to host the 2020 event, 2021 would be the next opportunity for Turnberry hosting the oldest ‘Major’ of all, and with Muirfield off the R&A roster after last year’s controversial vote to continue to prevent women from joining the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers which owns the course, Turnberry’s prospects look favourable, especially as money talks loud and the power of an American president is highly-persuasive.

The highlight of the remodeled course, is a stretch of eight new consecutive holes following the rugged shoreline, the 5th, a yard short of 500-yards, a demanding Par-4, the 7th, a muscular 572-yard Par-5, but the jewel-in-the-crown is the 9th, formerly a picturesque but somewhat limp Par-4 with the iconic Turnberry Lighthouse towering over the green.

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