My day at Trumpfest - what it was really like having a box seat for Donald Trump's new golf course opening
The President played his New Course in Aberdeenshire for the very first time in a finely tuned show for the world’s media at Trump International.
There is no press call like a Donald Trump press call, and right from the 5am departure from home, there was that familiar feeling of heading into the unpredictable world of the US President.
As the morning broke on Mr Trump’s fifth day in Scotland, where world politics, pledges and deals interlaced with the world of golf, there was a sense that anything could happen.
Trump International Golf Links Scotland is a place I have visited several times before and spent many hours traipsing around after Mr Trump, hoping for a sensible news line.
Once, back in 2016, I decided to hang back from the press pack, hide in a sand dune and run up to the presidential candidate as he tried to pot a ball in a desperate attempt to get a story. Despite my efforts, I failed to score a decent quote.
Later, exhausted after hours of following Mr Trump over this stretch of rather challenging coastline, I lay on the grass and looked up to see him driving a golf buggy with Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall hanging off the back.
READ MORE: Live: Donald Trump in Scotland
Times change, and of course Mr Murdoch was in 2025 nowhere to be seen as once close allies become potent foes amid the US President’s lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal.
On Tuesday at 6am, reporters mustered outside the evangelical King’s Church in the Bridge of Don to catch coaches to Trump International Golf Links Scotland. After passports were checked by police, who also had our car registrations, we took our seats for the first stage of the show.
At Menie, airport-style security scanners and Metropolitan Police awaited, but checks were super swift and super professional. It was a breeze compared to a morning flight at ABZ and we glided through to collect our accreditations, one which was marked White House Press Pool. I’ll probably keep that one.
A mini bus then took us to the heart of the golf course and the media centre, where a horrifying shortage of coffee and too few seats awaited.
By then, the golf course was already alight with people teeing off, with a Pro-Am tournament taking place. As last-minute preparations were made in this highly manicured world, someone hoovered a piece of artificial grass with a Dyson.
These reporting jobs, by their nature, are defined by much hanging around with bursts of activity in between. Chaperoned to the grandstand by highly assertive members of the White House Press Team, an hour or so was spent waiting for the ceremony to begin. In the distance, Donald Trump could be seen practising his swing.
As we waited, the skies thickened over Menie and the sight of the 11 turbines Donald Trump so vehemently tried to stop loomed large by the shoreline. They were much closer to the course than I recalled.
Also coming to mind was Michael Forbes and his late mother Molly, who fought with much dignity to stop the original development of land around their home at Menie, even though Mr Trump told the world they lived in a pigsty.
Trump always treats coming to Scotland like his very own homecoming, but he could never know a true connection to this place, such as the Forbes’ did.
As we waited for the President to arrive, tunes played across the links. It was an all American playlist: Hot Stuff by Donna Summer, Thriller by Michael Jackson and You are The One That I Want by Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta. Trumpfest was warming up.
As the tunes were pumped into the air, VIP guests took their places, including footballing figures Gianfranco Zola, Jim Leishman and Robbie Fowler. In the distance, the motorcade edged nearer.
Then, the sound of the Robert Gordon’s College Pipe Band blasted through the sea air and Trump’s head appeared above a sand dune behind the grandstand.
He was ready to roll. But first came a few words from Eric Trump, his son and the executive vice-president of the Trump Organisation. He paid tribute to his father and described him as his best friend and a “helluva guy” who was in the process of “saving the free world” and “saving America”. The crowd cheered.
Eric spoke of his father’s passion project giving way to his presidential duties, with the family picking up his the ambition of creating a second course at Menie, which is now home to “The Greatest 36” golf holes on earth. No question about that, he said, as the world’s media looked on and recorded a spectacular deluge of free publicity.
“We had an unlimited budget and we exceeded it,” he said. The crowd cheered.
Eric spoke of the course being his father’s ‘Mona Lisa’ with anyone playing the course being able to feel the “heart and soul” that went into it. It almost makes you want to take up the game. Well, maybe.
Donald Trump, to the pipes and drums, then entered the arena to loud applause. The mood was very much Team Trump, as family stayed close to the President.
Then this from the President: “We started with a beautiful piece of land and we made it much more beautiful. The area has really welcomed us in.
“Remember at the beginning, there wasn’t quite a welcome, but it wasn’t bad. In time, they liked us more. They love us and we love them.”
Molly and Michael Forbes and the loss of the Site of Special Scientific Interest status for the dunes came to mind again. But such intrusive thoughts would be just a tired old irritant to Trump International in 2025.
Trump always said he wanted to name his second course at Menie after his mother, Mary MacLeod, originally from Tong on the Isle of Lewis. But today, it was confirmed the first course will become Trump’s ‘Old Course’ - it opened in 2012 - with the second one simply known as the New Course.
“We call the first course the Old Course and the second course we call the New Course,” the US President said. “That is the best way to describe it. Anything else gets too complicated.”
Trump then spoke of fitting in a quick four-ball before heading back to DC to “put fires out all over the world”.
He said: “ We did one yesterday. We stopped the war. We have stopped five wars. That is much more important than playing golf, as much as I love it.”
Trump cut the red ribbon to his new golf course, the Village People’s YMCA played out across the dunes and fireworks and red, white and blue smoke blasted out of the sand and quickly disappeared into daylight.
That was possibly the most unpredictable moment of this finely orchestrated Trump show - and the President played on.
A late bump in the order was soon felt as a security operation ramped up at the entrance to the course. A car was searched, but nothing suspicious found.
The President was delayed in his departure and he took off just before 4.40pm, homewards to fight his fires.
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.