This Week at WorldGolf.com: Dec. 4, 2007

Good on Scotland for turning away Donald Trump's golf resort and swanky housing

Scotland is safe from Donald Trump.

For now.

The Aberdeenshire Council last week rejected Trump's grandiose plan to build what he modestly swore would be the best golf course in the world, actually two courses, and the 1,500 homes that were to go with it, marring a beautiful and relatively isolated section of the Scottish coastline near Balmedie, not to mention upsetting the delicate eco-balance there.

The best part is that a Trump spokesman described Trump as "very surprised."

Trump is used to bullying his way through this sort of thing in the U.S., and must have indeed been shocked he couldn't bully his way in his adopted "homeland."

I'm a little surprised myself that the Scots could throw up a roadblock to the high-haired, American billionaire and his cadre of high-priced lawyers. Few people in the U.S. can.

Predictably, Trump is making nasty noises, his lawyers are considering an appeal and, short of that, they're saying they will take their billion-dollar project the hell out of Scotland, maybe to to Northern Ireland.

Cheers to Martin Ford, the chairman of the Aberdeenshire Council's Infrastructure Services Committee, who cast the deciding vote and who must now put up with a firestorm from pro-development pols in the country.

The reasoning was simple.

"It broke a whole raft of planning policies in relation to environmental protection, housing in the countryside and it had wider implications in terms of the council's whole approach to bio-diversity conservation and the environment," Ford told the BBC News online.

Question: Trump claimed he needed to build the housing to pay for the project and the two golf courses. But if this was going to be "the best golf course in the world," wouldn't that have been enough to lure traveling golfers - both Scots and foreigners - and more than pay the freight?

Why mar the landscape with look-alike, high-priced housing and the junk that goes with it, which would have benefited only the wealthy and the few employees needed to maintain the project?

Face it, this was a money-making scheme for Trump. That's fine, but don't tell the world what a great favor you're doing Scotland.

A Northern Ireland Assembly member has already said Trump and his project would be welcome. There will be no shortage of offers from elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Trump will eventually find people willing to sell their souls and their land for Trump to re-make in his image.

As always, WorldGolf.com welcomes your comments.

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