55 The construction of the second golf course at the Trump club in Aberdeen may have attracted far less attention than the first, but the final result is just as dramatic. Toby Ingleton reports. All publicity may be good publicity, but the team at Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeen, Scotland, must nevertheless have enjoyed the build of a second course that was positively under-the-radar when compared with the furore that accompanied the first. Donald Trump was five years away from beginning his first term as President when the now-named Old course opened in 2012. Upon taking office in 2017 he passed responsibility for the operation of his golf portfolio to his sons. Eric Trump has led the New course development, able to proceed without quite the same scrutiny that his father’s project attracted. That in part is because the course does not enter a Site of Special Scientific Interest. But maybe it was expected to be a more modest affair, too? Not so, says architect Martin Hawtree: “The immediate feeling was for a course in no sense a junior.” When master planning both courses, Hawtree saved the Southern Dome – a system of high dunes at the south of the property – for the New. And this land is as extraordinary as any part of the Old. “The site commanded the best in the business,” says Sarah Malone, who has been in charge at Trump International Scotland for 16 years. Malone is effusive about “one of the most remarkable stretches of linksland anywhere in the world” and emphasises just how important the entire Aberdeen project has been to the Trump family, highlighting their “passion for golf, love of the land, and ancestral heritage”. Eric has been the driving force in the design of the New course and evidently shares his father’s philosophy that a golf course should deliver maximum excitement. Hawtree has largely retired since completion of the Old, but remained involved with the New, alongside Canadian architect Christine Fraser, who has also worked with Hawtree at Lahinch and Doonbeg, among others. Central to the development of the New course was the appointment of Esie O’ Mahony as contractor. He led the Old course construction for SOL Golf before establishing his own firm, GolfLink Evolve, and as an established and trusted advisor to the Trump team, would be instrumental in both the evolution of the routing and the detail of the design, along with his lead shaper Jamie O’ Reilly and the club’s superintendent Steven Wilson. Photo: Jacob Sjöman
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