Donald Trump and his family, including daughter Ivanka Trump, arrive at his Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland on June 24, 2016. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images)
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The pandemic has been great for the golf industry, but it hasn’t been able to turn around Donald Trump’s fledgling properties in Europe. In 2020, Trump lost $13 million at his three sites overseas, bringing his total losses there to more than $100 million, according to an analysis of British and Irish financial filings.
The trouble with Trump’s European golf business is that it’s all tied up in extravagant resorts—rather than simple clubs. Even though Covid-19 made it easy for golfers to sneak in a socially distanced round at the local course, it didn’t necessarily make people more likely to travel to big golf attractions. As a result, Trump’s resort-heavy portfolio has continued to struggle.
Trump’s most famous golf resort is Turnberry, the Scottish icon that has hosted four British Opens—all before he purchased the property for $65 million in 2014. Despite spending an additional $80 million or so to spruce up the place, Turnberry has continued to lose money year after year. In 2020, the property closed from late March to mid-July, then again from late November through the end of the year, causing sales to plunge 66% to about $9.2 million. Despite the closures, expenses remained relatively high, leading to roughly $4.7 million of operating losses. Things would have been even worse if the Trump Organization hadn’t gotten a $3.2 million Covid-related grant through the British government. Dating back to 2014, Turnberry has now lost a total of $68 million.
Business has been similarly bad at the Trump International Golf Links & Hotel in Doonbeg, Ireland. Trump spent about $20 million on that property in 2014, according to Irish records, then invested at least another $13 million into it. Nonetheless, he lost $14 million there from 2014 to 2019. The worst year was 2020, when he bled $4.4 million—despite receiving government grants of $600,000. Total losses since Trump purchased the place now add up to $18 million.
Trump’s smallest golf resort sits in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The real estate tycoon, whose mother emigrated from Scotland to the United States, opened a course there in 2012. But the business has never amounted to much. Covid restrictions forced the resort to close for part of 2020, causing revenues to plunge. Losses hit $1.8 million—even though a British government program provided $600,000 of grant money. Plans to build a residential village near the golf course also stalled. From 2012 to 2020, the Aberdeenshire property lost a combined $17 million.
After the publication of this story, a Trump Organization representative took issue with the accounting included in the article. “The $100 million of ‘losses’ is dishonest and incredibly misleading, as it represents non-cash items such as depreciation and foreign exchange and has no bearing on operating performance,” she said, without noting that the Trump Organization’s own financial statements count both depreciation and foreign exchange as part of “operating losses.” If you exclude those expenses, the properties have lost about $35 million. Depreciation is an especially large expense at these sites, which—despite more than $245 million of investment—are only worth an estimated $81 million. The representative also expressed optimism about the future of the businesses.
The former president has one other golf resort, Trump National Doral in Miami. The United States does not require businesses to disclose as much financial information as the United Kingdom does, so it’s harder to get a sense of how Doral has performed. The records that are available suggest additional struggles: Doral eked out a profit of $4.3 million on $75 million of revenue in 2017, but revenue fell to less than $45 million in 2020.
The only Trump-owned golf properties that fared okay were his smaller clubs. Sales at those 10 sites, which are all based in the United States, dropped an estimated 9% in 2020. That’s not great. But next to Trump’s four resorts, where sales plunged more than 50%, a 9% decline looks decent.
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