Trump, a secretive golf committee and a very British battle over the Open

Telegraph

2 days ago

As he indicated when he confronted Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office in February, if Donald Trump is to have respect for those with whom he conducts negotiation, they need cards in their hand.
So when Sir Keir Starmer went to the White House soon after the Ukrainian president, he ensured he had two aces up his sleeve. One was laid on the table immediately, in the form of an invitation from the King to a state visit.
The other, not publicly flaunted in Washington, is to ensure the oldest golf tournament in the world takes place on an Ayrshire course owned by the US President.
But while the King was amenable to persuasion on the political effectiveness of a white-tie dinner at Windsor Castle, getting the Open to Turnberry is proving a great deal more complicated.
Despite reports that Mr Trump has repeatedly asked Starmer about hosting the competition at his course, and subsequent pressure from senior Whitehall officials, the tournament's organisers have yet to give in.
More to the point, it is a matter of some urgency if Mr Trump is to achieve his ambition while still in power. The 2025 edition of the competition will be held next month in Portrush, Northern Ireland and the following year will see Southport's Royal Birkdale play host before, in 2027, it returns to St Andrews (where the tournament takes place once every five years). All of which leaves just the 2028 iteration available. And the rumour is, that has already been allocated. To Muirfield.
The processes by which the organisers make their choices are obtuse, not to say secretive; no one knows how many people are on the committee that makes the Open decision, never mind who they are.
But as one insider at the Royal and Ancient (R&A) tells The Telegraph the chances of the Open happening at Turnberry while Trump is in the White House are 'about as high as Starmer himself being invited for a round at the Queenwood [the ferociously exclusive golf club in Surrey]'.
A president 'not beyond bending the rules'
Not that Starmer has ever demonstrated an inclination to swing a three iron. His sport of choice is five-a-side football. Until now he has shown absolutely zero interest in the game of genteel suburbia – a far cry from the man he wishes to placate.
But then, unlike in Britain, where it is smeared by many for its social pretensions, in the United States, golf is the game presidents turn to in order to demonstrate they are men of the people.
Of post-war commanders-in-chief, only Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden did not show affinity with putting and chipping. But even compared to 18-hole enthusiasts like George W Bush and Barack Obama, Trump's penchant for the game is on another level.
This is a president who loves to play. And according to those who know him, he is not beyond bending the rules; at his Mar-a-Lago resort, so frequently has he reportedly been witnessed kicking the ball out of the rough, the caddies have gifted him the nickname Pelé.
More to the point, though, Trump has significant business investment in the game. Not least in Scotland, the country of his mother's birth, and one he says he 'loves'.
In 2012, after lengthy planning battles, he opened a new course in Balmedie, Aberdeenshire. With characteristic bravado, he insisted the Trump International Golf Links had been declared – though he didn't say by whom – the best in the world.
Easily good enough, he claimed, to host The Open Championship, the one golf major not held in the United States. But when he invited representatives from the R&A to inspect the site, he was politely told new courses had no place on the traditional circuit of host clubs.
£200 million of improvements
Trump, though, was not to be deterred. When Turnberry came on the market in 2014 he snapped it up for around £46 million. This was surely a place with sufficient history: it had hosted the Open four times, most recently in 2009.
Trump, determined it should return again, consulted closely with the R&A about refurbishments at the storied venue. Taking their advice, he promised to spend £200 million on improvements, employing the world's most renowned golf course architect Martin Ebert.
The results are undeniable. Hugging the coastline, with stunning views past the lighthouse across to the rocky island of Ailsa Craig, the course plays as well as it looks. Many who have been lucky enough to challenge its demanding holes have come away insisting this is a place as good if not better than the usual round of Open venues. A shoo-in, seemingly, to host the tournament.
'It's ranked number one in Scotland and in Britain, and rightly so,' says Colin Montgomerie, the former British number one. 'It deserves to host an Open. Let's hope the authorities can all get together and find a way to make that happen. And the sooner the better.'
The president's son Eric, who runs the Trump golfing empire, is no less certain.
'Turnberry is considered to be the best golf course in the world by the players, the writers, the spectators and the entire golfing community,' he tells The Telegraph. 'If we get the call, and I sincerely hope we do, I promise the R&A that we will be the best hosts the Open Championship has ever seen.'
A serious breach of etiquette
For some of those thought to be making the decision, however, there is one significant drawback: the course's owner.
In 2015, soon after Trump had acquired the place, Turnberry welcomed the Women's Open, the R&A's premium female tournament. Midway through the proceedings, the man himself turned up in his helicopter, which landed on the fairway. Play was temporarily suspended.
Trump, at the time campaigning for his first stint in the White House, then immediately conducted a press conference. Every subsequent news story was about the presidential hopeful – not the golf itself.
At the R&A's St Andrews headquarters, this was seen to be a serious breach of etiquette. The organisation's then-chief executive Martin Slumbers was particularly incensed. And he drew the conclusion that were Turnberry to host the Open, Trump would hijack the event for his own publicity.
'We will not be taking events there until we're comfortable that the whole dialogue will be about golf,' Slumbers told the Telegraph as recently as last November.
According to the R&A insider, under Slumbers's leadership 'the phrase 'over my dead body' was generally used when discussing when the Open would go to Turnberry.'
There is little doubt any such event would be dominated by Trump. Even if the man himself keeps away, there is no escaping who is in charge at Turnberry – as evidenced by the Trump-branded whisky in the bar, the Maga hats for sale in the club shop and the sign bearing the US president's name that greets visitors upon arrival.
A lightning rod for controversy
Moreover, according to the insider, there is a real fear among those who constitute the R&A's decision-making process that hosting the tournament at Trump Turnberry would turn it into something of a lightning rod for protesters, activists and others keen to make headlines. Already this year, there have been two incursions onto the course by pro-Palestinian activists, damaging the fairways and daubing the clubhouse in red paint. Trump has labelled the intruders 'terrorists'.
In 2018, when he played a round there in his first stint as president, a huge police presence was required to keep away climate protestors. While in 2016, the comedian Simon Brodkin hijacked an event to mark Turnberry's official reopening, brandishing red golf balls emblazoned with swastikas at Trump as he prepared to give a speech. The same year, the late Glaswegian comedian Janey Godley staged a solo protest at the venue, brandishing a placard which read: 'Trump is a c---'.
The security required to protect the place and its owner during the competition would therefore be extraordinary. And extraordinarily expensive. Which is another reason for the R&A's reluctance.
But perhaps what worries the Open organisers most of all is that, due to its isolated location, Turnberry is not a place that can easily accommodate the huge crowds they require to monetise the competition. There is only one road in and out to handle tournament traffic; Maybole station is the nearest public transport facility and it's eight miles away.
The Open is where the R&A makes the majority of its money, cash which is used to support the rest of the game. For this year's tournament at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland, 250,000 tickets have been sold. At Turnberry in 2009, such were the logistical issues, the crowd was considerably less than half that. And even so, locals joke there are still spectators stuck in the jams to get out of the car parks.
'Labour and golf have never been exactly cosy bedfellows'
The Government may not be so concerned about such stumbling blocks. Starmer's administration appears keen to ensure Trump's wish is met, if for no other reason than to keep the Prime Minister in the presidential good books. That may mean picking up the tab for heightened security.
'I think he's going to end up getting the Open. He may have to have it,' one senior figure in the Government told The Times earlier this month.
The Government says it is up to the R&A to decide where the open is held, but has not denied reports it has asked the organisers about its position on the event returning to Turnberry in the future.
'Sport operates independently of government, and decisions on tournament-hosting venues are a matter for relevant sporting bodies,' a spokesperson for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport told The Telegraph.
'Therefore, direct representations in respect of Turnberry's hosting of The Open Championship would be a matter for the Royal & Ancient Golf Club and their operational team.'
Given it takes up to three years to prepare a course for hosting duties, confirmation of the venue for the 2028 event must be imminent. Which, unless Trump rewrites the US constitution, would be his last chance to host the competition while serving as president.
The problem is, the R&A is not an organisation easily swayed. More to the point, according to the insider, they tend towards the view that golf should be at the forefront of every competition.
'Nor are they inclined to do the bidding of a Labour politician,' he says. After all, Labour and golf have never been exactly cosy bedfellows.
Officially, the R&A remains coy. 'We regularly engage with government and local government regarding venues,' it said in a statement provided to The Telegraph. 'We have explained the logistical challenges around Turnberry to the Government and they are aware of the position.'
Trump's reason for optimism
There is, however, one thing in Starmer's favour. Slumbers resigned last year. In his place as CEO came Mark Darbon, 46, who, when asked the most pressing question about his position, said he 'would love to see Turnberry host [the Open]'.
'Logistical problems are the stumbling block, not who owns it,' Darbon told the BBC in April.
A professional sports administrator, Darbon comes from a different background to the former banker Slumbers. As head of Olympic Park operations for London 2012, he was given practical exposure to the political imperatives behind sporting events. And more pragmatic than his predecessor, he might be amenable to the idea of a Turnberry Open, particularly if the Government could be persuaded to finance the enormously inflated security costs.
But even if he is more inclined than Slumbers, he will need to persuade the rest of the R&A's inner circle to back the idea. 'What most of them think, I suspect, is that it's really not worth the hassle,' says the insider. 'And they always have the excuse of the logistics not being up to it.'
Starmer, it seems, thought he had a trump card to play concerning the future staging of the Open. But it turns out it may not be one he is able to use after all, meaning the Prime Minister's plan to use golf as an instrument of diplomacy could yet end up firmly stuck in the rough.