Trump's links to Scotland — from golf courses to family history

Times

5 days ago

The White House has confirmed that President Trump will visit Scotland this week.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Trump will be in the country between July 25 and 29. The president will return to the UK in September for his second state visit.
There had been speculation for months that the US president would visit the country this year to coincide with the opening of his new golf course in Aberdeenshire. Police Scotland confirmed earlier this month that preparations were under way for the trip.
The president's exact schedule has yet to be made public but appearances at his golf courses — Turnberry in Ayrshire and Menie in Aberdeenshire, where he is opening his second course — are planned. A meeting with Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, is also pencilled in with Trump suggesting that will involve talks about refinements to the trade deal between the UK and US. John Swinney, the Scottish first minister, will also spend time with the president during the visit.
Trump's last visit to Scotland was in 2023 and his presence has previously resulted in protests around the country. Police Scotland have requested support from other forces around the UK for his latest trip.
The Trump International Golf Links on the Aberdeenshire coast was opened in 2012 after a long planning battle. Donald Trump had purchased the site in 2006 with ambitions for a luxury golf resort but faced local opposition to the development.
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A second 18-hole course, named the MacLeod course after Trump's mother, is opening this summer. The grand opening is believed to tie in with the president's visit.
Despite having received praise from professional golfers and industry publications for the quality of the set-up, the Aberdeenshire venture has yet to make a profit. In 2023, the most recent publicly available accounts, it made a loss of £1.4 million.
In 2014, the Trump Organisation bought the five-star Turnberry hotel and the three adjacent links courses in Ayrshire in a deal valued at about £40 million.
Turnberry's Ailsa course has hosted the Open four times — most recently in 2009 when Stewart Cink won after a play-off with Tom Watson. Watson won the tournament on the course in 1977, with Greg Norman triumphing in 1986 and Nick Price in 1994.
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The R&A, the golfing body that organises the Open, has cited the logistical challenges of taking the championship back to Ayrshire with concerns about how transport infrastructure and local accommodation would cope with the numbers of spectators expected to attend.
However, talks between R&A officials and Eric Trump, the president's son, who oversees the family's golf interests in the UK, took place earlier this year.
Turnberry booked a £3.8 million profit in 2023 on revenue of more than £23 million. The organisation has also introduced green fees in excess of £1,000 at peak times for people not staying at the resort.
Yes, Mary Anne MacLeod was brought up on the Hebridean island of Lewis. She was born in 1912 in the village of Tong, where her father Malcolm ran a post office and small shop. Mary left Scotland in 1930 at the age of 18 to look for work in New York.
Six years later she married Frederick Trump, a son of German migrants who had become a successful property developer.
The fourth of their five children is now the US president.
Mary became a US citizen in 1942. She died in 2000 at the age of 88. Members of her extended family still live on Lewis.
Trump is expected to open a memorial to his mother at the MacLeod course. The hotel at the Aberdeenshire resort — the Trump MacLeod House and Lodge Hotel — is named after her.
Several leaders of America have their roots in Scotland while others claim Scots-Irish lineage.
Among those with direct links are the fifth president, James Monroe, whose paternal great-great-grandfather left Scotland for the US in the 17th century.
William McKinley, the 25th president, had great-grandparents with Perthshire connections, while Woodrow Wilson's maternal grandfather, the Rev Thomas Woodrow, was from Paisley and emigrated to the US in 1835.
It emerged in 1984 that Ronald Reagan also had Scottish heritage. His great-great-grandparents, Claud Wilson and Peggy Downie, were married in Paisley in 1807.
Reagan's great-grandfather, John Wilson, was born in Renfrewshire and was involved in the whisky trade. The Wilson family left Scotland for Illinois in 1832.
The current US vice-president, JD Vance, has claimed to have Scots-Irish ancestry, but genealogy experts and DNA evidence appears to question this lineage.