Scotland Lauches Inquiry

Filed in archive Golf Courses on December 19, 2007

Donald Trump's Scottish golf project (or is it fiasco?) has taken yet another turn.

You'll recall that the Scottish Parliament stepped in after the local infrastructure committee of the Aberdeenshire Council rejected the project which involves constructing two 18-hole courses, a multi-storey hotel, holiday homes and high-end housing on environmentally sensitive land.

Members of the Scottish Parliament were outraged by the local committee's decision and the Finance Secretary, John Swinney, called in the project, meaning the MSPs would handle it from then on.

Clearly, the Scottish government, which has established close ties with Donald Trump, were intent on "righting the wrong" done by the committee.

The chairman of that local body, Martin Ford, was fired for casting the deciding vote to reject.

Those close ties between Donald Trump and the Scottish government have been well documented.

But since "calling in" the project, there have been more indications of just how close the relationship is.

And it has some MSPs smelling a scandal. So the Parliament's local government and Communities Committee is holding hearings with the promise of issuing a report in late January.

Yes, wealth does have its privileges and Trump knows how to acquire them.

So does Tiger Woods, it seems.

Tiger is loath to hand out his autograph at tournaments (if you can muscle past his phalanx of security to get close enough to ask him for it) because his signature is part of his overall cache as the world's number one golfer.

That's why the only signing he does is via his contract with Upper Deck. But when Tiger wants an autograph, he just asks the guys at Upper Deck and, bingo, he gets an autographed baseball directly from Sandy Koufax, one of Tiger's sports heroes.

It should be that easy for all of us.

Speaking of autographs and their worth, the same story by Doug Ferguson at AP mentions Zach Johnson signing Masters flags the week after he won at Augusta.

Johnson said that friends of his were on eBay later and found 40 of the flags for sale!

Everyone's out to make a buck...