President Trump Participates in a Grand Opening Ceremony of Trump International Golf Links Aberdeen

Lords, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. We're going to start the ceremony proceedings. We are honoured to have the 45th and 47th President of the United States of America with us on this historic occasion and members of the first family. We are delighted to see that today's grand opening is being attended by civic leaders from the uk, renowned international golfers, industry leaders, sporting legends, as well as special guests who have been so generous in their continuing support for Trump Golf in Scotland. We're delighted to welcome the First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney, Warren Stevens, the US Ambassador to the uk, Alastair King, Lord Mayor of the City of London, Anna Sarwar, leader of the Scottish Labour Party, and the leadership of Aberdeenshire Council Provost Judy White and CEO Jim Savage. From the world of golf, we, as you just heard, Guy Kenning, CEO of DP World Tour, Rob Maxfield, CEO of the PGA of Great Britain, Ryan Howsom, founder and CEO of Stayshore Group and principal owner of the Legends Tour, and Phil Harrison, the CEO of the Legends Tour. Of course, the events being staged today and over the next two weeks at Trump International Golf Scotland would not happen without the tremendous support of sponsors. We are delighted to see today Sir Don Manzoni, executive Chairman of Diageo, a great supporter of golf, and Cardew is the hospitality sponsor. Today, you'll all have seen or possibly even traveled in some gleaming Range Rovers. So a heartfelt thank you to Jaguar Land Rover. We also have our sporting legends who will be playing today and over the next few days, including US PGA winner Rich Beam, former Ryder cup captain Paul McGinley and US Open winner Michael Campbell. We also have legends from the footballing world who will be testing out the links, including Andrey Shevchenko, Gianfranco Zola, Robbie Fowler and Aberdeen's very own Jim Layton. And thank you very much to the members of the club too, for your continued support. No doubt you've stood on these links in much wilder conditions, but it's great to have you all here today. Before I hand over to Sarah, I just want to say a couple of polite requests. After President Trump hits the first shot and leads off the opening four ball, we will have a short interlude. Guests may stay and enjoy the following four balls whilst the world's media are escorted back to the media centre, or guests may leave and head back to the pavilion for refreshments. And members, you're very welcome to watch the golf during the day, but please do not follow the presidential four ball and abide by their directions. For from the stewards. Housekeeping over without Further ado, please welcome onto the tea the Executive Vice President of Trump International Scotland, Sarah Malone.

Minister, Ambassador, distinguished. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my absolute privilege to welcome you here to the grand opening of the new course and the launch of the greatest 36 holes. It has been my distinct pleasure for the best part of nearly two decades to work with the Trump family on delivering the vision of one man who determined many years ago when others said that it was not possible and it could not be done, and he determined that he could and he would, and he has developed the greatest 36 holes in golf here in the home of golf. For almost 20 years. A great many of you are in the grandstand today have participated and supported and contributed to our journey. It's been something to behold and we are greatly honoured. So many of you have traveled from across the globe to be with us here this morning. We appreciate you. Thank you. There are too many people in the auditorium that I would like to thank, and we'll get the chance to do that later. But I would like to introduce to the table the two men that I've been working with alongside their father, Donald J Trump is Eric Trump And Don Trump Jr.

High. It's burning through to my soul. Girl, girl, girl, girl, you gonna set me on fire? My brain is flaming I don't know which way to go? You can't see the L like the sweet song of the fire. You light my morning sky Burning love. I feel my depth with your eyes Help me unflaming.

Well, this day has been a very long time coming, everybody. What started as truly a passion project for my father, 2007, 2009, we started the old Course. He had one goal, and that's to build the greatest 18 holes anywhere in the world. And I saw him and I watched him at the time. He put every ounce of his heart and his soul and his effort into finding the best piece of land, to creating the greatest property, to build the greatest clubhouse, to shape the dunes and build something that's truly, truly exceptional. And he went off to do larger things, and that's save the free world, save the United States of America. And I can just tell you, on behalf of our entire family, on behalf of every single one of us in the Trump Organization, we wanted to continue his legacy. And so, like he did in 2009, I've put every single ounce of my heart and soul integrating a complement to the first course. We wanted this to be the greatest 36 holes anywhere on earth. And there's no question, there's no Question that that's been achieved. This course is remarkable. This course. You will feel our heart and soul in it. You will feel our passion. You will feel the dedication. You know, nothing was left. Nothing was left out. We had an unlimited budget, and we exceeded it. You know, this was his Mona Lisa. And my father's always said. He always said, you know, some people really appreciate the painting on the wall, you know, the beautiful. And he never did. Right for him, you know, creating this, right, These beautiful. Sculpting the dunes, sculpting the land. That was always his painting. And so I really hope today that we honor the greatest man I know, our best friend, a person who's led this company for 30 years and now leads the most powerful nation in the world and is doing a hell of a job. I hope in his absence, we really honor him today. And it's. It's an incredible honor to have him out here. Before I bring him to the stage, I want to bring our greens crew, because without Steve and our guys on the ground, this would not happen. Steve, come down here. This team is the absolute best anywhere. Their attention to detail, they are more meticulous than any team that you'll ever meet. And that's also true of the construction team who put this together with Amy, with ez, and with Jamie, and with Claire, and with Christian, and with also the famous Dr. Martin Ebert. It was a team of the best people in the entire world. And again, when you get out there, you're going to see something that's truly second to none. So without further ado, we owe this course to a remarkable person, a remarkable man, a person that we all love incredibly much. And he's going to come down here and we are going to cut this beautiful ribbon. And we're proud of him. Our family's proud of him. Our nation's proud of him. I think the entire world is proud of him, and I think he's going to be incredibly proud of this amazing masterpiece that we created here today. So the President of the United States, ladies and gentlemen. I can mean something.

Well, that is a beautiful sound. And we want to thank them. What talent. And you have young ones and you have a little older ones, and they're going to be. The young ones are going to be doing that for 60 years, just like the little older ones are doing. And I want to thank them very much. Great group. Heard them last night. I also want to thank your first minister, who's here. John, would you stand up? John Swinney, who's a terrific guy. And loves golf and loves the people of this. Of this country, and we really appreciate it. You're really a very special guy. Thank you very much for everything, John. My son Eric has worked so hard on this, and it's been truly a labor of love for him. And we started with a beautiful piece of land, but we made it much more beautiful. And the area has given us. They've really welcomed us. 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. Now they love us and we love them. They've really put it out and they know how good this whole complex is. At Trump International, 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. They don't know which is which, but they know the old and the new, and it's going to be something very special. And the big question is, which is going to be better if there's such a thing? Because we've had such great ratings on the 1st. I don't know if you can match them on the second, but the second should be every bit as good. The land is of equal quality right on the North Sea, and it's going to be really. It's going to be great. I look forward to playing it today. We'll play it very quickly. And then I go back to D.C. and we put out fires all over the world. We did one yesterday. As you know, we stopped the war, but we have stopped about five wars. So that's much more important than playing golf. As much as I like it, it's much more important. I want to just thank Sarah Malone for having been with us right from the beginning. She was young and not experienced. Now she's still young and very experienced. So I just want to thank you and my. And my son Don, for. For being with us all the way. He's always been with us, and he's a great guy. And he's got some great golfers in the family, Kai. And he's got one right over there, that little one. She may be one of the most talented in the whole family. She's something special. Right? So that's Chloe. She's. You'll be reading about her someday, walking down the 18th hall of some great course, I think. Right. She's very talented, actually. So I just want to thank everybody. This has been an unbelievable development. The land, they said it couldn't get zoned. It was an impossibility. And Sean Connery said, let the bloody bloke build his golf course. Once he said that, everything came into line. John and I were talking about it last night. Everything came into line. I want to thank, by the way, the prime minister was here last night and was really very gracious and loves the place, loves the area. So I just want to thank him very much for coming. And we gave him a little preview and it was really very nice. And we just signed a very big deal, as you know, with the European Union, but also with the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom was a week before. And it's a very big deal and a great deal for the country and it's a great deal for everybody. So I just want to thank him and everybody that worked so hard on us. They've been trying to get it done for 12 years. We got it done. So somebody did a good job. So I just guess we're going to be hitting a couple of balls and we're going to play the round. And Laura, I want to thank you, the head of the Republican Party for during the election, which was the time they counted and she was fantastic. And Ron and Larry, thank you very much and everybody. We just had tremendous, tremendous support from everybody, especially the family. 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. To the groundskeepers, who I know so well from number one, the first thing I said, which is better, the old or the new? And they were unable to give me an answer. They actually meant it. But great job you've done with your corps superintendent who's been here for a long time. And we just want to thank you and to all of our friends, to all of our great friends, thank you very much. So I'll be playing quickly and then I'll be heading back. And I look forward to that, but I really look forward to playing. So thank you, everybody, and thank you to the media. The media has been terrific. Believe it or not. I didn't use the. See, I didn't use the word fake news one time. Not one time. Today they're not fake news. Today they're wonderful news. But I just want to thank you. They've treated us really well and they respect what we've done, really at a level that you rarely see nowadays. So I really very much appreciate it. And we're going to go out, we're going to have a good time. Thank you all of the Dignitaries and all of my friends. It's going to be a special day, and it's going to be a special year, and it's going to be a special decade. And we're going to make all of our countries strong and great and really wonderful again. And that's happening, and it's happening very fast. And we love Scotland. My mother was born here and she loved it. She would come back here religiously once a year during the summers with my sister Marianne and sometimes my sister Elizabeth, but they would come here religiously. And Stornoway, that's Sirius, Scotland, by the way. There's no doubt about that. So the Isle of Lewis. I want to just thank everybody and have a good time today. Play well, enjoy yourselves, and many, many years, we'll see each other many, many years. Thank you very much, everybody.

And ladies and gentlemen, before we cut the ribbon, we want to present something to a very, very special person. A person who's truly become a member of our family. And that's Sarah malone. She's dumped 16 years of her life into this incredible property. She's built every inch alongside of the entire family. And there's no one more deserving of this than. Than her. She's truly, truly become a friend, family, and a person we love very much. So I know she's gonna get emotional. I can see the lips. But you deserve every moment of this incredible day. Not only are we doing this ribbon cutting, not only are we doing a presidential visit, we're also doing the Legends tour. We're also doing the DP World Tour back to back. I think Guy will tell you that's the first time in history that you've ever had two tournaments playing in back to back weekends on the same course. So you're a rock star. We love you. We appreciate you very much, and this is for you. Sarah, You like to do the honors?

Okay, we're ready. Are we ready? So may God bless everyone, everyone here and everyone everywhere. We have a world that's got some conflict, but we've ironed out a lot of it. We're going to have a great and peaceful world. And on a much smaller scale, this will be a tremendously successful place and a place where people can come and enjoy life, and it's very special. So I hope everybody in Scotland and well beyond Scotland, enjoys it for many, many years to come. Let's go. One, two, three. Thank you, everybody.

To get you.

All right.

Three, two, one, down.

I said, young man, man, pick yourself off the ground. I said, young man, there's no need to be unhappy, young man. There's a place you can go. I say, young man, Sa. You can get yourself clean. You can have a good meal. You can do whatever you feel.

Yes, they gave me the honor.

Please welcome onto the tee the 45th and 47th President of the night, United States of America, Donald J. Trump.

He likes the course, ladies and gentlemen. He likes the course a lot.

Thank you very much. Everybody. Have a good time. Thank you very much.

Next up, no pressure. Eric Trump.

Ball, eh?

Ball.

I like the course, too. Congratulations.

Okay. All right. Okay.

Former Ryder cup captain and team member Paul McGinley. And us pga champion rich bean.

It. Mr. President, what will you see next to Benjamin Netanyahu?

We're working together. We're going to try and get things straightened out for the world. Thank you very much.