New pics show progress at Donald Trump’s latest Scottish course

Construction of Donald Trump’s latest Scottish golf course looks to be progressing well judging by these new photos.

Whilst the 77-year-old prepares for the upcoming US presidential election, the team on the ground at his Aberdeenshire golf resort are hard at work building its second track.

Named in honour of his mother Mary, the MacLeod Course has been designed by the acclaimed Martin Hawtree and will sit adjacent to the first course, also conceived by Hawtree and which opened for play in 2012.

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Trump visited Scotland last May for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the beginning of construction for the long-mooted development.

Dramatic new aerial pictures of the development, shared to the Golf Courses of Scotland Facebook group by Jamie Dick, show the incredible progress that has been made since then.

In a promotional video for the course, shared on social media last year, Trump predicted that it will host “many, many championships” when completed.

“We’ve had great pleasure working with this land,” he said. “It’s one of the great pieces of land anywhere in the world. We built a course that’s recognised as one of the greatest courses in the world. Some people say it’s the greatest course ever built.

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“We have a lot of land left and it’s all right on the sea, so we had to make a determination: do we want to use it for golf, do we want to use it for houses, what do we want to use it for?

“We decided to build a course that we’re going to try to replicate, in terms of the quality, the course that we finished years ago.

Adding that the course will be complete in “the not-too-distant future”, he said: “Having a second course of equal quality is a big advantage for [hosting] tournaments because they can use both of the courses.

“We’ll have many, many championships here between both courses. I think it’ll be a great success.”

Michael McEwan is the Deputy Editor of bunkered and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Deputy Editor