Laid out on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, The pay and play facility at Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles endured something of a troubled golfing gestation before it finally opened to the public in 2006.
The course was originally developed for Ocean Trails Golf Club in the late 1990s but a landslide caused much of the 18th fairway to slip away from its cliff edge position towards the Pacific during construction.
The resulting stabilisation work cost millions of dollars and ultimately forced the club into bankruptcy, allowing the Trump Organization to step in and rescue the project in 2002. Following further costly repairs, the 18-hole layout finally opened for play on 20 January 2006.
It’s said that Donald Trump himself made "improvements" to the original Pete and Perry Dye design, softening greens, repositioning bunkers, removing some of the forced carries and adding a number of elevated tee boxes.
Unfortunately, the course was scheduled to host the annual end of season PGA Grand Slam of Golf tournament in 2015 but the event was cancelled due in large part to the then presidential contender’s controversial comments about illegal immigration.
