Donald Trump opens new golf course at Aberdeenshire resort
Trump also made reference to late James Bond actor Sir Sean Connery's reported support for his golf resort – even attempting to recreate the actor's voice.
Donaldo Trump is concluding his trip to Scotland (Jane Barlow/PA)
Just before hitting the first ball at the New Course, the US president told those gathered on a grandstand: 'We started with a beautiful piece of land, but we made it much more beautiful.
'The area has really welcomed us. If you remember at the beginning there wasn't quite a welcome, but it wasn't bad.
'But with time they liked us more and more, now they love us and we love them.'
Trump added: 'I look forward to playing it today.
'We'll play it very quickly and then I go back to DC and we put out fires all over the world.'
The president thanked his son Eric, who was involved in the creation of the new course (Jane Barlow/PA)
At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, the president thanked his son Eric for his role in creating the new 18-hole course, adding: 'This has been an unbelievable development.
'The land, they said it couldn't get zoned, it was an impossibility.
'And Sean Connery said, 'Let the bloody bloke build his golf course'.
'Once he said that everything came into line. (First Minister) John (Swinney) and I were talking about that last night.'
Construction of the new course in Menie began in 2023, with Trump and his son Eric breaking ground on the project.
Donald Trump has tried out the new course at Menie (Jane Barlow/PA)
Trump International Scotland claims the two courses will be the 'greatest 36 holes in golf'.
Critics say the Trump developments in Scotland have not delivered as many jobs as promised and work at the Menie site has caused environmental damage.
Members of the media watched the opening ceremony from a grandstand, with music played beforehand including Roxanne, Thriller, and Surfin' USA, plus music by the Script and Elvis.
The president has already played several rounds of golf during his Scottish trip, teeing off at his other resort in Turnberry, South Ayrshire, on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
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The National
an hour ago
- The National
It's time we tried to rebuild the ambition of Scottish Modernism
There's much to say about the Serbian fabrics master. In his 60s and 70s heyday, Klein sent multi-coloured tweeds from the Borders to the world's leading fashion houses. The building just saved was Klein's collaboration with the leading modernist architect (and fellow Borderer) Peter Womersley, who also built Klein's family home close by. I want to begin in a visceral way, triggered by the current photos of the 1971 studio in this week's press reports. It's essentially intact as an elegant, angular structure – but how neglected as a sight. READ MORE: Scottish crew 'excluded from Spider Man 4 filming' Water-damaged, graffiti'd, mossy, glass walls shattered … It's as if the modernism of the place itself had been under attack. Of course, the real reasons are prosaic. Built in Klein's first burst of success, the studio (latterly promoting local textiles) declined as the weaving industry did in the Borders. It's laid derelict for the last 20 years. 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A Guernica-scale metal sculpture, composed of forces and objects, sets you up for the tender mercies of the tech studies building. In retrospect, I was ripened (and toughened) in the grids of High Modernism. Right across from our Victorian family home, surmounting the West End park, two 14-storey high-rises loomed. All manner of teen troubles tumbled out of them, for me. So believe me, I can understand the ambivalence about reviving Modernist ruins. Yet still, there's something about their confidence and optimism that remains compelling. Particularly from our current era's standpoint, where hope for the future feels more fractured and tentative than ever. On a recent music-biz photo session, we sought out Modernist – indeed, brutalist – scenes and textures, across the expanses of Glasgow. It was a thrilling brief. We found ourselves glorying in the rough-casting of overbearing concrete structures, loving the infinities implied by paving stones and steps. Given the next Hue And Cry album is 'electro', in the broadest sense, it felt that a celebration of big, confident engineering was a good backdrop. Yet big, confident engineering often sits at an angle to the hearts and minds of residents and users. The Modernist 'megastructure' (as the architects put it) that made up the bulk of Cumbernauld town centre was guided by cutting-edge theory at the time. Flows made up of humans, shops, transport and meeting places were elaborately modelled; the whole place was designed so that structures could amend and adapt themselves. It had the spirit of utopia about it. But the ambivalence about the current demolitions of Cumbernauld's megastructures is manifest. The 2024 book Concrete Dreams: The Rise And Fall Of Cumbernauld Town Centre talked to many locals. 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Peter lays out 150 post-war buildings, built from 1950-1980, making a case for their preservation (where they still exist). What a tour he provides! There are small-scale sci-fi extravaganzas I'd never heard of. Like the Dollan Baths in East Kilbride. Or Womersley's miraculously balancing triangular stand for Gala Fairydean FC. Or Aberdeen University's tomorrowlandish engineering building. There seem to be many poignant Modernist churches, tucked away in Scottish locales. Poignant, as they were built in an age of secular dominance – though nowadays they look like exactly the kinds of luminous spaces we need (religious or not) to get our heads together. Go visit St Columba's Parish Church in Glenrothes, or St Francis Xavier's in Falkirk, or St Charles Oratory in Glasgow's Kelvinside. We should still attend to the parlous decay of St Peter's Seminary in Cardross, whose demolition would be such a loss to this tradition. The tumult of Modernist style in Peter's book makes you reassess buildings you'd taken for granted. Like the sandstone consistency of the 70s extension to the old Mitchell Library in Glasgow, whose solidity and reliability I've leant on for many decades. (Its interiors are well described as 'resembling a luxury hotel in Moscow'). Or even my home town's Monklands Leisure Centre, which I can now see as a brutalist masterpiece of swooping and corrugated concrete (as opposed to somewhere I could grab a ping-pong table). There are many more exquisite examples of the Scottish Modernist tradition in this book. Peter ends with a plea against the 'eyesore' charge often made against modern-era buildings. 'It is apparent that many people are unable to distinguish between superficial decay spoiling the appearance of a building and the potential of its underlying architecture', he writes. 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The crowdfunder for Bruce Peter's Modernist Scotland is still running at
The National
an hour ago
- The National
History will judge monsters who enabled a genocide
Keir Starmer's announcement that Britain will recognise the State of Palestine in September if Israel doesn't agree to a ceasefire and a two-state solution sums up his political project. Starmer himself is an empty vessel, a mere frontman for Labour's most reactionary and self-serving political faction: his own advisers briefed that he thinks he's driving a train, but they had placed him in front of London's driverless District Light Railway. This faction is defined by its cynicism, lacking not just a vision for our disunited kingdom, but a moral core. They saw that growing numbers of MPs were demanding Palestinian recognition, including some of the drones they parachuted into the parliamentary party, whose blind loyalty has been frayed by the realisation they're heading towards electoral apocalypse. READ MORE: Gaza detainees 'tortured and raped' by Israeli forces, United Nations hears The SNP were preparing to force a parliamentary vote on statehood, which would leave Labour exposed. 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South Wales Argus
an hour ago
- South Wales Argus
Cardiff Capital Region wants action on Severn Bridge limit
Vehicles weighing 7.5 tonnes and more have been barred from crossing the bridge, that spans the Severn from Aust to Chepstow, since Tuesday, May 27 and Monmouthshire County Council has warned it fears firms could relocate from Chepstow without continued easy access to the motorway network. Now members of the Cardiff Capital Region, which is the joint committee for the 10 unitary authorities in South East Wales, say they will look to support Monmouthshire's calls for a solution. Councillor Robert Bevan, who chairs its overview and scrutiny committee, promised to 'take the issue up' after it was raised at its meeting this week. The Labour member of Rhondda Cynon Taf Council said: 'Time is of the essence, we can't wait. I can certainly say I will take this up further and see what we can do.' He said the M48 bridge, at Chepstow, as well as the M4 and the Prince of Wales Bridge is a vital connection for the region's economy and key industries: 'We must emphasise it's not just Monmouthshire that will feel the impact but the rest of South Wales will feel it as well. 'We have deliveries come from the Midlands area, there's lots of companies in the automotive sector and aerospace which is built around Severnside and Filton.' Simon Griffiths, Labour councillor for Bridgend, noted the long term solution to strengthen the 1960s built suspension bridge's cables is estimated to cost between £300 million to £600m. He said it needed to be the 'top regional transport priority' for the body whose main functions are planning transport across the region and how land is used as well as growing the economy, including the Western Gateway project that involves councils across South Wales and the south west of England. Cllr Griffiths said: 'This really could damage any growth we see in South Wales.' Monmouthshire council's Labour representative on the body, Chepstow member Armand Watts who raised the bridge restriction at the meeting, said it's estimated up to 2,500 jobs in the town could be impacted. He also said the weight limit has scuppered plans for the Severnside area in Wales to rival the economic growth seen on the English bank. 'We had the opportunity to replicate what they've done in South Gloucestershire and Bristol where there are 9,000 jobs. I would say that's an economic hotspot.' Cllr Watts also complained the South East Wales Trunk Road Agency has 'not said anything publicly' about the weight limit and said it has been down to Monmouthshire to argue its case with the UK Government, which is responsible for both bridges over the Severn via National Highways. 'Our cabinet member was given 15 minutes with the junior minister, the minister for future highways, and that's it,' said Cllr Watts who also complained a working group has been set up 'without any elected members to decide our future.' Cllr Watts, who represents Bulwark and Thornwell, said his ward is only nine miles from the M4/M5 interchange, north of Bristol, which he said should allow it to benefit from the city's economic growth and said: 'I really hope you can show some solidarity with poor old Monmouthshire on this.' National Highways has previously said it is anticipated the weight restriction is expected to be in place for 12 to 18 months as a short term measure while it considers how it could allow vehicles over 7.5 tonnes to cross the bridge in a managed system as a medium-term solution.
