On a five-day visit to Scotland in midsummer, described as a “personal trip”, US president Donald Trump held a meeting with Keir Starmer. For their get-together the British prime minister was invited to Turnberry, one of the golf resorts Trump owns in Scotland but also a course that used to be on the rota of The Open.
The significance of the venue was easy to decode. The last time Turnberry hosted golf’s oldest Major was in 2009, five years before Trump bought it for $60 million. The convicted felon is desperate to have Turnberry returned to favour, not least because it has only turned a profit in one year of his ownership; in 2024 the business reported a loss of £1.7 million.
Years ago, the principal obstacles would have been cited as logistical. As crowds at The Open grew exponentially, Turnberry had issues with road, rail and accommodation infrastructure. But after the Capitol Hill riots of January 2021, the Royal and Ancient [R&A] was unambiguous that the problem with Turnberry was the ownership.
“Until we’re confident that any coverage at Turnberry would be about golf, about the golf course and about the championship, we will not return any of our championships there,” said the R&A in 2023.
Since Trump returned to the White House for a second term, however, he has leant heavily on the levers of power. Earlier this year the Guardian reported that Whitehall officials had explicitly asked the R&A if Turnberry could host The Open in 2028.
“The government is doing everything it can to get close to Trump,” one person with knowledge of the discussions told the Guardian. “One concrete thing is that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has been involved in pushing for The Open to return to Turnberry.”
Keir Starmer and Donald Trump at Balmedie. Photograph: Jane Barlow/Pool/Getty Images
Two other people briefed on conversations between Trump and Starmer told the newspaper that the prime minister had been asked “multiple” times about the subject by Trump.
Leadership at the R&A has changed over the last 14 months, however, and its new chief executive, Mark Darbon, said earlier this year that he would like to see The Open return to Turnberry “at some point”. Does that sound like the tide has turned?
In the 10 years since Trump first announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, his relationship with golf’s establishment has oscillated wildly. For Trump it was a business concern but, like so much else, it was also a matter of vanity. He craved golf’s approval.
[ Trump arrives in Scotland for golf and bilateral talks that could yield trade deal with EUOpens in new window ]
After the riots on Capitol Hill, though, golf’s establishment turned its back on Trump. Bedminster in New Jersey, one of the 11 golf courses that Trump owns in the US, was scheduled to host the 2022 US PGA – one of golf’s four Majors – but the PGA of America performed a U-turn and moved the event to Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The PGA of America was later forced to make a settlement with Trump for breach of contract, which included an obsequious statement lauding the Trump Organization’s contribution to golf. But its original thoughts on the matter ultimately guided its actions.
US president Donald Trump and British prime minister Keir Starmer arrive at Balmedie on the Marine One helicopter. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
“It’s become clear that conducting the PGA Championship at Trump Bedminster would be detrimental to the PGA of America brand,” it said at the time.
It was another source of great irritation to Trump that his Doral course in Miami, Florida had fallen off the PGA Tour’s roster. The Doral Open had been a staple of the PGA Tour schedule for decades, followed later by World Championship events.
But in 2016, when Trump was the presumptive Republican candidate for the White House, the PGA Tour struggled to find a sponsor for the event at Doral and instead moved it to Mexico City – which, in another context, was the kind of migration he was campaigning for.
“I hope they have kidnapping insurance,” Trump said at the time. The PGA Tour denied that the decision was “a political exercise”.
When he was out of office, and out of favour with golf’s establishment, Trump took comfort in the arms of the Saudis. LIV Golf needed venues for its fledging tour and Trump was open for business. The European Senior Tour and the Ladies European Tour, both of which were short of partners, took some comfort in his arms too.
But none of that satisfied Trump’s ego or his insatiable desire to turn a buck. These events didn’t command an audience, either on site or on screens. The fees that LIV Golf paid to stage events at his courses were “peanuts to me”, Trump said.
Rory McIlroy and Donald Trump at Trump’s Doral golf course in Miami, Florida in March 2016. Photograph: Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
But all of that has changed now, remarkably. As if the riots on Capitol Hill had never happened, or he had never been found guilty in a civil court of sexually abusing the writer E Jean Carroll or had never been found guilty by a New York court on 34 felony counts of falsifying business documents. As if Trump, magically, wasn’t Trump.
Rory McIlroy’s judgment was vilified when he played golf with Trump in 2017. Three years later he said, pointedly, that “I haven’t done it since … out of choice”. But when he played with Trump again at the beginning of this year, there was no uproar. What changed exactly? How was Trump a less odious figure now than he was in 2017?
This year, the DP World Tour staged an event at a Trump course for the first time. Next year, the Irish Open, one of the few remaining box office events on the tour, will also be staged at a Trump venue, Doonbeg in Co Clare.
[ Get ready for Establishment Ireland to swoon over Trump when the Irish Open comes to DoonbegOpens in new window ]
The PGA Tour has also capitulated to Trump’s reptile charms and, after a hiatus of more than a decade, it will return to Doral next season. And not just with a regular tournament but with one of its $20 million signature events, guaranteed to boast a stellar field.
Having briefly taken a stand against one of the most repulsive figures in the wide world of public life, golf’s establishment has reduced itself to one of Trump’s many lackeys.
When Trump returned to office one of the many conflicts, momentous and trivial, that Trump promised to solve was the continuing beef between the PGA Tour and LIV. The great and the good of American golf made a beeline to the White House to pay homage. Trump has failed to solve that conflict too.
Golf’s soul was on the market again. Trump got it for free.
