Trump International Aberdeen Preview

Nish: 0:00

Every story has an ending. Does our quest to play the top 100 courses in 10 years have a good ending? I’m Nish, I’m Chris and we’re here to guide you through this golfing journey. This is the Top 100 in 10 Golf Podcast, episode 41, the Trump International Aberdeen Preview. So we are on day two of our Scottish trip in Aberdeen, or we’re heading to Aberdeen from Dundee. We had a very, very short stay in the Premier Inn in Dundee Lovely hotel Thoroughly recommend it. Didn’t get to see any of Dundee because we arrived very late.

Chris: 0:40

No, we arrived in the dark, left in the dark.

Nish: 0:45

Overly long checking procedure from a very chatty guy who didn’t realise that we were absolutely knackered and just wanted to have a shower and go to bed.

Chris: 0:52

The inside of the Premier Inn was lovely, though. That’s our summary for that.

Nish: 0:56

There were a lot of people hanging around, weren’t there? There was a lot of people in reception there was one english coming out the bar my goodness, there’s one english guy who’s absolutely slating the scots and I was like what are you doing, mate? Look this is ridiculous.

Chris: 1:09

We’re slating the scottish um service levels as well, wasn’t it? It’s?

Nish: 1:14

very interesting. I mean, yeah, hotels like read your audience hotel doesn’t seem to be the place to do that, if I’m honest. But, uh, so we, we are on our way. We’re in the car at the moment on our way to trump international, which came back as a bit of a last minute round, uh, and it came about because initially, this round was cancelled due to a tournament which was played last week at the course. But when the opportunity came up and I think it was, chris was just on the website and said, oh, some t-sl slots are available, should we get booked in? I thought we thought, yeah, we absolutely should do. We’re up there anyway, let’s get it booked in. So we are playing with.

Chris: 1:54

Chris. So we’re going to play with Graham, a friend of mine who lives locally, and he’s got a friend who is a member here, so very luckily we are going to be taken round by a member who I believe, is a pretty good golfer as well.

Nish: 2:07

Yeah, and we’re going to get signed in, which is always a lovely, lovely little treat.

Chris: 2:11

We’ve just come over a crest of a hill and we’re just looking at the sea, which is pretty scenic, isn’t it?

Nish: 2:18

It is stunning up here, isn’t it? It is, you know, this feels like the heartland of golf, yeah, and I think that’s one of the things that we were really looking forward to in this trip.

Chris: 2:28

But I think we said that as we’ve driven along, we’re driving past golf courses and we’re like where are the people to play? There’s no houses anywhere. There’s no houses, yeah, and there’s just like a golf course, another golf course, another golf course. Yeah, makes you realise how much, how important golf is in scotland, because it’s just everywhere, isn’t it?

Nish: 2:44

yeah, in one of our previous episodes, uh, jack buchanan, who’s the president at hind head, said every scottish family’s got two or three sets of golf clubs in the loft, and I could see why. Yeah, it’s just all there, isn’t it? So we are, as I said, heading over to trump international. Now. This course, and this course preview, takes a bit of a different slant at the minute because, generally speaking, we sit here and we would be talking about the history of a club. Is there anybody notable sort of played there? Who’s designed it? All that kind of stuff. We’ve just come back from playing Guller number one. Oh, we’re on the way, sorry to Trump from playing Guller no 1. Oh, we’re on the way, sorry to Trump, from playing Guller no 1, which golf has been played there in some form since 1650. So we’re now flipping that on its head. Yeah, I mean, it’s the polar opposite right, it’s the absolute polar opposite.

Nish: 3:39

We are playing at a golf course that didn’t exist till around 2010 yeah, 2012, which is etched on our memories as london 2012 but that was the year that donald trump played the first tee shot to the golf course, and it’s basically the story goes that somebody sent don Donald Trump and his golf advisor a picture of this parcel of land that is north of Aberdeen and north of Royal Aberdeen Golf Club, just dunes. It was just dune land, and he said that’s the perfect place to put a golf course you can see.

Chris: 4:19

why, though, can’t you? Because, looking at the pictures, it just looks epic in terms of the size of the dunes. They just look huge.

Nish: 4:30

And they’ve just carved the golf course right into it. Basically, haven’t they yeah? Yeah, I might sort of mention that hind head preview on review. It was when we spoke to jack buchanan and that front nine had that kind of you know, valley field into it and I wonder, do you think it’s gonna have that? Do you think it’s gonna be that valley narrowness or not?

Chris: 4:47

quite the extent of hind head. But yeah, it’s gonna give you that feel, I think isn’t it, because you’re gonna have dunes kind of left and right and it gives you.

Nish: 4:53

Gives you that kind of feel yeah, you’ve got to hit down the middle, into the, into the little valley, into the dip and I think, visually, when you’re sort of looking at what’s in front of you and you’ve got this sort of lush green hopefully lush green I mean, the summer’s been a bit dry but lush green fairway and then it’s contrasted by this sort of yellow, very pale, brown, long, deep grass. I mean that’s that’s a very, very visual contrast, isn’t it, and sort of draws your eye in and it looks like that’s how the course is laid out yeah, it does you know you’ve not got all these blind shots anywhere and you stand up on a usually an elevated tee yeah, looking down onto the dune.

Chris: 5:37

I’m pretty sure we’re not in for a dull round of golf today. I think everyone that’s played it just said it is amazing.

Nish: 5:43

It’s an amazing place to play golf.

Chris: 5:46

Yeah, absolutely, I think we’re in for a bit of a treat today. Yeah, I think it’s going to be.

Nish: 5:52

I think we love a visually appealing, visually stunning golf course. Anyway, that’s just our MO, I suppose.

Chris: 5:59

Yeah, I think it’s going to be difficult.

Nish: 6:05

It’s going to be a difficult course. Everybody does say that, yeah, and one of the things that keeps coming out is that it’s a it’s a bloody long course. Yeah as well. So we had tea discussion, which one we fancied playing off, last night when we were on our way back.

Chris: 6:19

Yeah, we were getting a little bit, a little bit worried about it, weren’t we? Look at the scorecard.

Nish: 6:23

It’s like the back tees are 7,500 yards, which is mad.

Chris: 6:30

But for a Lynx though, because traditionally Lynx are reasonably short, they’re not overly hard Because they’re old courses, aren’t they?

Nish: 6:35

Because they’re hard, right yeah.

Chris: 6:37

They’re old and they’re hard because they’ve got loads of gorse and all that kind of stuff.

Nish: 6:39

I suppose also, unless so unless they’re like kind of where they host tournaments where they need to lengthen them. Yeah, I mean this is the old course is for people who played with old golf clubs and golf balls.

Chris: 6:49

I mean, this has been built right to host those tournaments and obviously last week it hosted the Scottish Opens. That was the first big tournament it’s hosted. Yeah, yeah, I mean I’m assuming that they probably want this on the open rota. It’s probably what they’re. I’m not sure that will happen, but certainly not in there.

Nish: 7:02

I think Troon’s the one, isn’t it?

Nish: 7:03

That’s the Trump one, that’s going to get it, it wouldn’t be this one particularly no-transcript, the club’s celebrity owner, you know it’s, he’s not out of the news ever, he’s, he’s a larger than life personality. He sort of says he’s there to to help scottish golf along and and it has been not sure scott would agree with that. Yeah, and it has been in the news, this golf course, because of stuff like you know, constant vandalism and and things like that, yeah, uh, I mean famously just recently turnberry got vandalized into it. But, um, you know, the sort of inception of this golf course was controversial.

Chris: 7:44

I think, chris you, you mentioned that so, yeah, I think it’s like an area of outstanding national beauty, isn’t it all the natural dunes, I think? And I think they had had something taken away from them because obviously they built the course onto the dunes. I think they actually had that, had that accolade taken away from them. I think it was a protected area of London. I think it’s no longer protected, so yeah. So I mean, yeah, there is some controversy around the course, for sure isn’t there, and I guess it’s that.

Nish: 8:07

And I think that you kind of your impression of Trump like his personality is larger than life. His personality is like I’m here, we’re here, this is the trump organization. Your impression is that it’s you know it’s a loud brash in your face kind of place. But I will say, looking at stuff online and listen to people’s reviews, everyone’s been very pleasantly surprised by how understated the course is, I think, just generally.

Chris: 8:36

I think generally, scott, scott’s generally are quite the opposite of that. They’re fairly low-key and kind of like understated Matter of fact, aren’t they?

Nish: 8:45

Yeah, exactly yeah, you know, they’re just down-to-earth. Say it as it is, you know, and that kind of doesn’t match up with it.

Chris: 8:51

No, it’s a bit of a juxtaposition, isn’t it?

Nish: 8:53

Yeah, we’re using that word a lot, yeah but you know, but with the clubhouse facilities for instance, like this is our taste, I think of an american style service. Yeah, in the top 100 we’ve got maybe three opportunities at this and that would be all three trump courses we’re going to play and but every everybody sort of says you expect this in almost gaudy over the top clubhouse and it’s not it’s really really tastefully decorated and you know it’s just a lovely place to be.

Nish: 9:24

You can tell that money’s been spent on it. Yeah, but it’s that level of american service, but with a hint and a nod to tradition. So we’re quite interested to see that and and and see what our actual thoughts are on that, which is why we are recording this in the car on the way over, because we don’t want to lose, we don’t want to sort of experience that and then say, oh, let’s do the preview now. Now we’ve actually played the course, because you’re influenced by what’s happened. So, um, that’s a little bit about how kind of how the course came about. Now, a few of the little bits that sort of keep coming out is that it is by everybody who’s been described as a bucket list course, a brutally hard bucket and a brutally hard one, yeah which I think that you know the rough is thick.

Nish: 10:11

Uh, it’s fairway or bust. It feels like I’m looking at the course maps bust, it is, bust, it is.

Nish: 10:18

Let’s, let’s test the limits of this, uh this rough, chris, but you know, you’ve got little things like uh, there’s, there’s two back tees that are really worth checking out, and that is, uh, the 11th, and that gives you a spectacular 360 degree view of the the course. We’ve just had that at gulland and that was an absolute treat. That was a feast, wasn’t it? And we just stood there for like five minutes taking pictures. It was amazing. And then the 18th, apparently, again is, it’s a spectacular par five elevated tees, and we were saying before, there’s very few blind shots in this, this course. I think it’s all kind of laid out in front of you, yeah, and it’s like here’s your challenge. Yeah, you can see where you need to go. It’s difficult, but you can see where you need to go and are you going to be able to?

Chris: 10:58

do it? Yeah, but it opens and closes with a par five, doesn’t it? Two long par fives in the first and the 18th, which is pretty unusual, yeah that’s it.

Nish: 11:06

That’s right, so we should at that moment. Chris, that’s a really good segue. You’ve led us into what our side bit is, so you haven’t heard from him yet the uh voice of reason, that’s jim.

Chris: 11:25

He has sent us his side bet, do you?

Nish: 11:27

want me to do it in jim’s voice. Let’s do it in jim voice as close as possible. Hello my name is jim. He’s got a very deep voice but I can can’t do it. My chip-lung voice doesn’t go quite that low. Jim. Side bet is brilliant. I think You’re talking about the par fives. He says that the side bet is for the lowest net score on all four of the par fives.

Chris: 11:53

And they look like brutes. They do look long, I don’t think either of us are going to be near 20. Five times four is 20, isn’t it?

Nish: 12:01

Five times four is 20, yeah. I was thinking I’ve got a minute. Five times five is 20. I’m thinking of a par five, right, a par five. I’m happy to walk off with that. That just shows the difference in calibre, chris, I’m thinking par you’re like par five.

Nish: 12:15

I’m thinking par you’re like par fives should be a birdie right, yeah, so that’s our side bet, which I think is great. That’s a really good side bet because those par fives, they are a scoring opportunity. But this is one course where I would say I think a par is going to be a good. They don’t feel like a scoring opportunity.

Chris: 12:34

They just sort of feel like get through, yeah, survive the par fives, take your three shots.

Nish: 12:41

Yeah, take three shots to get to the green. Yeah, absolutely Walk off happy.

Chris: 12:44

I think it’s probably one of those, isn’t it?

Nish: 12:45

Yeah, that’s it Now again the other thing that we’re excited about and interested to see now is that contrast between every course we’ve played has been historic, has been weird.

Chris: 12:58

You went into um introduction.

Nish: 13:01

That was an introduction, I sort of did every yeah because every course we’ve played there’s a new intro coming for year three. We, we, there’s like things about old golfers who’ve played there and there’s moments that have either been on telly or you’ve heard of something, or there’s been like, oh, they have this famous Ryder Cup match or whatever, like there’s nothing like that to get your teeth into.

Chris: 13:26

Or they just held the Scottish Open right last week, so I guess that’s the start of that.

Nish: 13:29

Was it the Scottish Open that they had? Yeah, no, sorry, not the Scottish Open world tour. And again, chris, you’ve done a really good segue here, so that’s perfect. Again, I’m mega excited about playing this weekend, so I’m holding out hope that they’re not so efficient that they’ve got rid of all the stands already. And because that’s the closest I think I’m ever going to get, yeah to experiencing like any kind of tournament type conditions. Yeah, any kind of signage, anything I mean. Well, I I got excited about one billboard that had the Open written on it at West Lank. So if there’s a stand-up somewhere, that’d be un-freaking-believable.

Chris: 14:06

I guess it could be quite a busy week this week at Trump because obviously they’ve got the new course which is just open.

Nish: 14:11

this week as well I’ve had the tournament there so there might still be a bit of a flurry of activity happening.

Chris: 14:19

Yeah, the new course, and that’s I think that’s just open this weekend, doesn’t it? Yeah, oh yeah, I think it’s at some point this week certainly maybe that’s why we could get on the original course today yeah, because everyone’s trying to try and play the new one, the new course yeah, interesting, so well.

Nish: 14:33

One thing that really jumped out at me in reading about this and I was fascinated by this was that the guru of short game play, mr Floppy, himself, phil Mickelson although on my notes it says Phil Mickelson because of text correct or spelling correction said it’s the best short game practice area anywhere in the world, which is high praise it’s just for flop shots.

Chris: 14:58

Practice area anywhere in the world Wow, which is high praise.

Nish: 15:00

It’s just for flop shots, right? So there’s just like, yeah, walls, big, deep, cavernous bunkers, yeah, very, very sticky, receptive greens, yeah, no-transcript, whatever that is like, but practice area, that’s. That’s probably the reason why it’s quarter past seven and we’re still, you know, 15, 20 minutes away and we’re, we’re, um, we’re getting there that early because we do have an early tea time, but not this early, uh, so that’s going to be a nice treat, I think, isn’t it, um? And we’re going to try, and if we can find a table and get some lunch there and experience the trump hospitality. But it does say here that in my notes I’m reading there are two back tees worth checking out.

Nish: 15:41

The 11th for the panoramic which we just explained before. We got that at Gullen, which was unbelievable. Yeah, I mean, it’s so beautiful, wasn’t it? Yeah, 18th, but I think it looks like they’ve kind of generally gone. You tee off high in the dunes and then you dip down into the fairway you play Now. Does that mean it’s going to be less windy, if the wind does kick up? I don’t know.

Chris: 16:08

Certainly not for your tee shot.

Nish: 16:09

Yeah, does the wind. Oh yeah, actually sorry to think about that. Yeah, we need that foreiron that you left at Hankley Common, chris, that’s what you need.

Chris: 16:17

let’s not talk about it. I got away with it yesterday. Actually, we were not using it. There was two or three shots throughout the day where I thought perfect four iron. Perfect for a four iron to manufacture something with a five or a three.

Nish: 16:29

There was a couple of occasions Chris ended up in the rough and I was like, no, that would have been a perfect with you. You wouldn’t. You wouldn’t have got in there with your four right, couldn’t help, it, couldn’t help it. But yeah, but everyone says it’s. This is a beautiful facility to go and play golf. It’s. Some of some people have even said, and he’s famous on the podcast which is uh, coach, dan, coach, yeah, so it’s the best course he’s ever played. Yeah, by far, yeah, by a margin. And and what?

Chris: 16:58

what’s his qualifications on telling us that chris, like I mean he’s played a few courses in his time. I think you know he’s played college golf, he’s you know he’s coached. He’s coaching some european tour players as well, so yeah, yeah you know he’s, he knows what he’s talking about, and then obviously graham as well that we’re playing with. He plays locally another, another aberdeen course and he’s very, very excited about coming back and playing trump. He’s played it once before um he says, yeah, it’s just by far the best thing he’s ever played.

Nish: 17:22

It’s incredible and playing with the members always great. We always have a good round there, don’t we? Yeah, exactly, yeah lines.

Chris: 17:27

I think, yeah, I think it’s going to be a huge amount of value you add playing around here with a member, because it’s going to be tricky, I think, to pick lines and stuff like that, because some of it just looks mental, like in terms of the architecture. It just looks interesting, isn’t it?

Nish: 17:41

like they’re. Basically. There’s a guy who’s designed it actually and, forgive me, I haven’t actually researched who designed this golf course, but there’s a guy that’s designed this golf course, or people have designed this golf course. It’s only opened 13 years ago. Yeah, and it’s not. No, it’s our 14th. It’s only opened 13 years ago and they’ve absorbed all of golf design architecture knowledge.

Chris: 18:04

But I mean, it’s gone straight into the top 25, hasn’t it? Yeah, and very quickly, straight into the top into the world.

Nish: 18:10

It’s ranked what it’s ranked 23 in our list yeah so we’re playing a really, really big hitter of of a golf course the third highest we’ve played after woodall spa, and I can’t remember there’s one other we’ve played, or maybe we are playing, I’m not sure, but it’s. It’s right up there yeah as a as a golf course, this feels like it’s right up there as a challenge as well. Yeah, and right up there in facilities and experience.

Chris: 18:41

Yeah, yeah, you love all that stuff, don’t you?

Nish: 18:44

Yeah, it feels like it’s ticking a lot of boxes, yeah, and I’m glad we had a good warm-up yesterday on a course that we felt we could spray a little bit. Yeah, we had a little bit of room for manoeuvre. All of our bad shots out of the way, chris, and we didn’t actually play that badly.

Chris: 18:58

That’s definitely not going to have happened, Nish, but we’ll see.

Nish: 19:01

I don’t know I’m holding out positive vibes. I mean, you know, the sun’s shining here in Aberdeen.

Chris: 19:09

It is, isn’t it? It’s probably the only day it’s ever happened ever Aberdeen on our right, I think, but this.

Nish: 19:13

Scotland is just a wonderful place to play golf. This is the fourth round we’re gonna have played in Scotland today. Every time it just feels special there’s a lovely Scottish welcome, everybody it’s. It feels like it’s still a a game for the people. Yeah, in Scotland we were talking about that before that it’s not elitist, it’s not snooty, it’s not mired in too much tradition and and whatever it’s like. Come on, get out there and play. Yeah, all right, golf is there to be played. Yeah, so we really really are looking forward to this. Now there is one last thing that jim has sent us, which is the signature hole challenge. So I made notes before I knew this was a signature hole and my notes said about this hole that the t looks immense, it’s tough and it’s narrow, but looks like an unbelievable hole of golf. And that’s just from a course mapping, just from a couple of pictures, and that is the 14th. So that that’s our signature hole challenge hole, chris, yeah.

Chris: 20:18

Yeah, I mean, from the pictures it looks absolutely spectacular.

Nish: 20:20

Yeah, it’s been a while since I think we’ve had a difficult signature hole challenge.

Chris: 20:26

Yeah, you know, you kind of looked at it and gone oh okay, it’s normally just a par three, right, normally par three. It’s normally quite a small one because they’re the ones that look nice, right.

Nish: 20:37

You Probably quite a small one, because they’re the ones that look nice, right, you’re the par three expert, so you know it’s been all right for you, I suppose. But yeah, this is I keep using the word special, it feels special why we wanted to record this now on the way over and why we are getting there early. And you know, I think we are interested in seeing because it is a relatively controversial course you could, we can’t, avoid that topic. Yeah, the owner is a controversial person and his site itself is controversial.

Nish: 21:09

Yeah, the site is controversial. You know he’s courted that a little bit and there has been some protest about the course and things like that. So I’ll be really interested to see how we feel about it. I remember way back it’s totally brought it back to me I remember way back when, when we first started the journey and we talked about the courses we were going to play and, yeah, I think we got a question on the list of the q a about it as well and you know that came up and that just shows how how much this, these courses, the three trump courses, stick out in people’s, yeah, mind and mindset. You know, what are you going to think about the trump courses? What are you going to think? And I think I did say I think I’m going to come back and go. They were amongst my favorite, uh, golf courses. Interestingly, we’ve not played this early, too early in the journey yeah, so we’ve.

Chris: 21:55

We’ve got to go up in the baseline of what we like and what we don’t like.

Nish: 21:59

Maybe I’m less dazzled by the fineries of a golf course and maybe the golf might come into it a bit more.

Chris: 22:08

The golf looks bullshit-ish. You love anything flash. I don’t know who I’m trying to kid here. Valet parking and anything.

Nish: 22:15

gold, what I do know is that that merchandise shop is going to get absolutely nailed so expect me to come back with loads of stuff with trump and blazes on it, uh, but yeah, look, this is going to be a a great place to play, is there? Do you feel there’s anything you want to add, chris, that don’t think so about? I don’t think so, I am very, very excited about this course.

Chris: 22:37

I think this is the one. I think, when we originally lined up our year earlier on at the start of the year, this was the one that stood out for me as being probably the most impressive, most special course that we were going to play in the year, and we nearly didn’t play it.

Nish: 22:55

It’s been on and off, hasn’t it?

Chris: 22:56

It’s been on and off and on and on and then it’s come back on at the last minute, which I think has just increased the level of excitement, because it feels like something that we nearly lost and then we’ve got it back.

Nish: 23:08

I would say that, and I hope I’m not speaking out of turn here, but I would say, when we found out that we weren’t playing Trump, we were both gutted. Yeah, would that be fair to say.

Chris: 23:18

Yeah, like I said, we were both really looking forward to it, weren’t we yeah?

Nish: 23:24

Like there’s a very strong possibility that in our lifetime we don’t play an American golf course and this feels the closest to doing that. Yeah, and that’s quite exciting because it feels like a totally different thing, but I think they’ve been.

Chris: 23:38

You know they’ve tried to do it in a scottish way as well. Yeah, it’s gonna be interesting to see how. Let’s see whether we, whether we come away thinking it does feel american, or whether it, whether it’s managed to kind of retain its scottish heritage.

Nish: 23:48

Yeah, and sort of. We’re going on about this quite a lot because for a couple of reasons that we just come back from gulland and like that course was crawling with american visitors it was yeah coming and playing.

Chris: 23:59

Yeah which is great, by the way. Yeah, I mean, that was, that was our first experience with that. We experienced a bit of it at glen eagles, didn’t we? But it didn’t. But yesterday was very american heavy, wasn’t it? That was the most americans I think we’ve seen pretty much. I’d say it’s probably 90 percent americans plus gareth bale yeah, you mentioned that gareth bale.

Nish: 24:16

Well, we’ll spend. We might save that a little bit for our review. But yeah, gareth bale was in two groups ahead of us holding everybody up it was great, uh and spraying it quite a lot. So we all got as uh, I think. Well, though, we did get an eagle and a birdie back to back, didn’t we? And uh, yeah, on a par there was a 420 yard par five, which go figure, there 5, go figure, it was the shortest par 4, but it was actually a par 5 for some reason.

Nish: 24:39

But we’ll save that for the review there’s a little flavour in the review, but yeah, we will report back to you on how much we loved Trump International at the D I think, yeah, I’ll be. I I think, if we pick the right tees, yeah on this incredibly long course.

Chris: 24:57

That I mean so yeah, that reminds me I do need to buy some new golf balls oh, yeah, yeah, I think, yeah, I think we’re gonna.

Nish: 25:05

We’re gonna go through a few today, aren’t we? I think? So, yeah, yeah, let’s well, no, let’s keep it positive. Okay, yeah, let’s do that. I think I think we’re gonna have a good driving day today. Okay, I get that feeling. I feel like we’ve ironed out a few of our loose shots yesterday and nuances, yeah, yeah, and it’s good. My body’s feeling a bit stiff from yesterday, so that means I won’t be overextending on the backswing.

Nish: 25:30

So that’s something to look forward to. But yeah, that is our Trump International preview. We hope we’ve done the course, some justice in the preview, but, like I say, normally there’d be a bit of history to talk about and we don’t have that. So here’s to a good round at Trump International. Chris, make golf great again. Make golf great again.