Photo: Trump Turnberry The seventh green on the Ailsa course at Turnberry now sits directly beside the beach Donald Trump bought Turnberry just five years after Stewart Cink crushed a 59-year-old Tom Watson’s dream of a sixth Open championship. There have been sixteen Opens since, and the Ailsa course continues to wait for its fifth major. It would be difficult to argue that the layout has not significantly improved in that time, under the hand of golf course architect Martin Ebert, working alongside the resort’s director of golf courses and estates Allan Patterson. In 2016, a major project saw a raft of changes including the rebuilding of all greens, the introduction of new par-three sixth, ninth and eleventh holes, and the extension of the tenth to a par five. “When we were appointed to advise him, we never thought that we’d be dealing with Mr Trump himself, but he was the man on the buggy all the time,” says Ebert. “It was quite remarkable. We thought we’d be dealing with one of his assistants or underlings but no, it was Mr Trump the whole time. He would send us these glossy plans and lots of squiggles on them and centre lines.” The coastal stretch that runs north along the Firth of Clyde, beginning at the fourth and culminating at the eleventh, and punctuated by the famous lighthouse on a rock outcrop beside the ninth green, is one of the most remarkable sequences of golf in the world. Refusing to rest on its laurels, the resort continues – now under the direction of Donald’s second son, Trump Organization executive vice president Eric Trump – to explore every possibility 79
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