The Donald adds a note to his opus

    All the public hearings have been conducted in Aberdeen, on the eastern coast of Scotland where Donald Trump is hoping to build his $1 billion resort, including homes, and where the plans are pitting neighbor against neighbor.  Now the American millionaire will just wait for the ruling bodies to make their final decision.  Not one to wait in silence, the showman Trump has announced he is planning to give his eventual Scottish employees each a non-polluting Smart Car, some believe, as compensation for wrecking their local sand dune structure.      Meanwhile, Trump hustled off a letter to a local farmer who had risen in support of the resort at a town meeting.  Naturally the letter, and a profile of the 79-year-old farmer, Vic Henderson, made it into the local press.  Trump suggested they "play a few holes" when the coastal course is completed.  To his credit, the farmer, who will be into his 80s if the course does get built, saw the hustle coming a mile off:  "He'll have to give me a stroke a hole," said the overmatched Mr. Henderson.
    On Trump's latest foray to Scotland, he stopped at the family's old stomping grounds - his mom was born somewhere in the area of the Outer Hebrides Islands - and the remote but famous Stonoway Golf Club offered him membership.  He accepted, although if his course in Aberdeen doesn't get the green light, it cannot be too likely that Trump will revisit or that Mr. Henderson will get to play his "few holes" with the confection-coiffed one.
    Trump, who probably believes in the old adage that there is no bad press, just spell his name right, was mentioned in regard to the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale this past weekend.  PGA tour player Geoff Ogilvy complained in the local papers that the redone 17th green at the Open course was "a skateboard."
    "If Birkdale were a one-hole course," Ogilvy told the press, "this green would be out of character with the rest of the course.  It's out of character with the land. It's out of character with the hole."
    The 17th hole brought Trump into play because Martin Hawtree, the Donald's architect in Aberdeen, had been commissioned to redesign it.  Hawtree responded to the complaints by Ogilvy and others by blaming the Royal & Ancient Golfing Society.  "The R&A wanted spectator mounds," Hawtree told the press.  "So now the green forms too much of a bowl shape. I'm taken aback by the depth of the reaction."  He pledged to restore it to the original design he presented to the R&A if they ask him to do so.
    If Mr. Hawtree believes the R&A pushed him around, wait until he starts his work for the Donald.  The London betting house Ladbrokes will quote odds on just about anything, and it will be interesting to see if the odds are in the esteemed Mr. Hawtree's favor, or if he is more likely to be called into the boardroom eventually to hear the dreaded words, "You're fired!"