Trump breaks out Sean Connery impression as he oversees made-for-TV spectacle at new Scottish golf course

Daily Mail​

4 days ago

President Donald Trump cut the ribbon on his new Scottish golf course – organizing a spectacle that included bagpipes, fireworks, and hitting a long drive into the first fairway before the national media.
He also rolled out a bit of a Sean Connery impression, as he revisited a claim that the late 007 was instrumental in bringing his course to reality.
'I just want to thank everybody. This has been an unbelievable development. The land, they said, couldn't get zoned, it was an impossibility,' said Trump.
'And Sean Connery said: "Let the bloody bloke build his golf course,"' he said, impersonating the beloved actor.
'Once he said that, everything came into line,' said Trump, adopting some of the local lingo.
A 2008 report had a more Connery expressing support for the benefits of the course, but in less insistent language, with the acting legend saying it gave a 'vote of confidence' to local tourism. Local officials later disputed Trump's claim that Connery pushed through approval.
The president marched toward the first tee accompanied by a bagpipe band for the remarks on the fourth day of his trip to Scotland – just the latest display of pageantry and Trump's third performance of the trip.
His team kept a crowd that included retired golf pros and soccer players waiting while the president warmed up his swing on a driving range in preparation for a ceremonial fires drive before onlookers.
Before that, trump gave uncharacteristically brief remarks to dignitaries, mentioning his intervention into a border clash between Thailand and Cambodia and prospects for new trade talks with the U.S.
'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,' Trump said.
'We did one yesterday, as you know, we stopped a war. But we stopped about five wars. So that's much more important than playing golf, as much as I like it,' Trump said, on a trip where he announced he was moving up a deadline for Russia to end its war on Ukraine or face secondary tariffs.
Trump, whose foursome included son Eric and two golf pros, was the first person to ever play the course, which had been built over a period years by a team that included three architects, engineers, and groundskeepers.
The new course's branding logo is 'the greatest 36 holes of golf,' after the combined two links courses on the North Sea.
The new course features holes that meander through natural dunes, marshes, and agricultural areas. Every hole has a sea view, and all feature vistas of the Scottish countryside.
According to Trump International Scotland, it also features 'the world's largest natural bunker' – a claim that is tough to verify and that one insider indicated might be more impressionistic.
A crowd of VIPs up front included U.S. ambassador to the UK Warren Stephens, Lord Aberdeen, and sports figures including Liverpool star Robby Fowler, who once famously appeared to hit back at rival fans by pretending to snort cocaine off a soccer pitch line.
A sound system drew from the Trump rally playlist with songs like 'Surfin' USA and Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' while the crowd waited.
'Not exactly A-listers,' quipped one crowd member about the collection of names.
Trump had a chance to hold the record for the course, if briefly. He is the first person to play it in its entirety – although he assembled a talented foursome.
Among them was Trump's son Eric, who helped oversee the project to 'to shape the dunes and build something that's truly, truly exceptional,' as he described it.
There was a long saga to build the course, which required Trump to overcome local property owners and environmental opposition before he was president.
He referenced it at the top of his remarks. 'Welcome. If you remember at the beginning, it wasn't quite a welcome. But it wasn't bad. But with time they've liked us more and more. And now they love us, and we love them,' as Trump told it.
Trump's trip has been filled with branding opportunities, as world leaders came to his Turnberry course to tout its beauty.
But describing the new course – technically named for his mother and her MacLeod clan – the president opted for simplicity.
'We have the first course, which we call the old course, and the second course, which we call the new course, because that's the best way to describe. Anything else gets too complicated. [Otherwise] they don't know which is which … and it's going to be something very special,' he said.
A large billboard outside the course says 'tickets for sale now' for the upcoming Nexo championship event. The White House has brushed off ethics groups pointing to using the office to promote a private business, and have called the five-day trip a 'working visit.'
The president may have been poking at environmental regulations when he talked about the course, with hulking offshore wind turbines – Trump's green energy nightmare – in the distance.
'So I just guess we're going to be hitting a couple of balls and we're going to play the round. .. These are very hard to build. And you won't see them built anymore. You'll probably never see another course built in the dunes, not dunes like this,' he said.
The president was wistful at times, even mustering kind words for the press – which may have been a hint that the media pac included local and sports journalists.
'And thank you to the media, the media's been terrific, believe it or not. I didn't use the word fake news one time – not one time today. They're not fake news today. They're wonderful news,' said Trump.
His brief speech was followed by a ribbon cutting with golden scissors. Some aides had trimmed it slightly shorter before Trump arrived to give it the correct length. That was followed by a brief display of red, white and blue fireworks.
Then Trump hit a drive before the crowd – hitting his shot an ample distance in the center of the fairway. Eric's shot went straight, too, who with less arc.
Pro golfers Rich Beem, a 2002 PGA winner, and Paul McGinley, an Irish Ryder Cup hero, appeared to hit their first shots longer, winning applause.
A pair of reporters tried to get Trump talking, after he went on for more than an hour Monday at Turnberry, addressing Russia, trade, and the Jeffrey Epstein controversy.
When one asked Trump for his Middle East plan, there was grumbling from the crowd at the topic, or at least the timing.