When asked whether he was worried if the R&A, golf's governing body, were to decide - after the uproar about his "They're rapists" comments - not to grant another Open to Turnberry, which he purchased last year, Trump shrugged his shoulders. Photo / AP
When asked whether he was worried if the R&A, golf's governing body, were to decide - after the uproar about his "They're rapists" comments - not to grant another Open to Turnberry, which he purchased last year, Trump shrugged his shoulders. Photo / AP
In its 110-year history, Turnberry has been employed for other uses than golf; an airbase in World War I, a hospital in World War II. But never before had the golf resort in southwest Scotland been used as an extension of a United States presidency campaign trail.
So it waswith Donald Trump here on one of the most surreal opening days in the history of major competition. While the great female players of the age were contesting the Women's British Open on the Ailsa links, Turnberry's American billionaire owner was swooping down, rather conspicuously, in his helicopter before staging a press conference outlining why he should be the Republican candidate in the next election.
American golfer Michelle Wie had expressed the fear that his presence would overshadow the tournament.
She was correct. The "accredited media" were instructed that questions must be kept to golf, although someone clearly forgot to tell Trump. Amid his declarations that he had been proven correct in his controversial claims about illegal immigrants from Mexico, that he would get on with Vladimir Putin at the same time as building a US military so mighty nobody would dare mess with America, Trump did talk a little about the game. And what he said was not without resonance.
When asked whether he was worried if the R&A, golf's governing body, were to decide - after the uproar about his "They're rapists" comments - not to grant another Open to Turnberry, which he purchased last year, Trump shrugged his shoulders.
"That doesn't matter to me, I have to do what's right," he said. "All I can give them is the greatest canvas in the world and this [Turnberry] is the greatest canvas in the world, especially when it is renovated."
Trump had enticed the entire press corps to the grand hotel on the hill above the links for his grand pronouncements. Some of the players were finishing with nobody to ask their opinions, a scenario about which American Lizette Salas could have only dreamt. When she walked off the 18th with a satisfactory level-par 72, many cameras were thrust in her face and one over-enthusiastic TV reporter barked at her: "Is Donald Trump a racist?" Salas is the daughter of Mexican immigrants.
She left as quickly as possible. By then Trump had been quizzed about the world No29 and her uplifting back story. "Never heard of her," Trump said.
