Big-time comforts for visiting Americans

Like the man himself, and like many of his hotels, Donald Trump’s Aberdeenshire golf course, at 800 acres, looks like being on a seriously large scale. You can get a perfectly adequate course into 150 acres.

It is most likely that he will start by building one course, then follow with a second and possibly a third. And, almost certainly, he will build a Trump hotel on the site.

Americans love playing golf in Scotland — widely seen as the home of the sport. But at home they are used to courses on a much bigger scale. The Scottish courses also often have only a modest clubhouse.

Americans like to be comfortable. They like their valet parking where clubs can be taken out of the car by an assistant and placed in a buggy. They like the service they get on the courses in America, where a player’s shoes back at the clubhouse are cleaned while he is playing the course.

My guess is that Trump, once established in Aberdeenshire, will then look for land in St Andrews.