Just when we’d had enough of hearing the words ‘Donald Trump’, an invite arrived to play 18 holes on the soon-to-be-opened Trump International Golf Club.
As you may know, The Donald has the lowest ever golfing handicap for a U.S. President. He owns several courses, including Turnberry, Trump Doral and the Trump International Golf Links in Ireland and Scotland. And this month sees the opening of his first course in the region.
Given this track record, we decided to put politics to one side and go see if the new course would be like his political campaigning: all hype over substance.
Built in the grounds of the vast Akoya housing development, the course is designed as a links, which seems to be a strange choice seeing as links courses are normally associated with coast-hugging scenery rather than inland desert locations. That said, the interconnected, sprawling fairways (thumbs up for those who aren’t always accurate off the tee) and greens located next to each other separated only by grass, lumps and humps, actually make it, arguably, the only true links course in the UAE.
The deep bunkers replicate features of other traditional links courses, and a handful of holes even have large water hazards – a rarity in most desert golf courses.
Designed by Gil Hanse (the man behind Rio’s Olympic golf course), the layout will test low handicap players, but also be forgiving to amateur golfers – which was clear from our round.
If a sign of a good course is that not all holes look the same, then the Trump International ticks all the right boxes. A mixture of long par-threes on the front nine, and shorter holes to close out the course, will offer up plenty of challenges, and will require plenty of luck to marshal– much like its owner’s presidency.
To book a round visit trumpgolfdubai.com
