Donald Trump: Me, president of the USA? Maybe, just maybe

Published on Thursday 7 October 2010 19:53

DONALD Trump is in ebullient mood. And he has every right to be.

• Trump says he doesn't want to be seen as pretentious, or 'I'll be crucified'

Back home in America, he is being touted in some circles as a potential successor to Barack Obama as the next President in the United States.

In Scotland, he has seen the spectacular piece of coastline where he plans to build the "world's greatest golf course" being transformed "beyond his wildest expectations".

And today, he will receive his first ever honorary degree from one of Scotland's leading universities.

The flamboyant American tycoon is due to receive the degree, of Doctor of Business Administration, from Aberdeen's Robert Gordon University at a graduation ceremony at the Garthdee campus this morning.

It will give him the right to put the honorary title of Dr before his name. But, as he relaxed at his offices at the Menie estate between a busy round of business meetings yesterday, The Donald was having none of it.

"I don't want to be so pretentious," he insisted. "If I do that, I'll be crucified."

The honorary degree he will receive from oil tycoon Sir Ian Wood, the chancellor of the university, will be the first he has ever been awarded in any of the countries where his vast business empire now stretches.

"I am getting three others but I can't name them now," he said. "I'm not allowed to. This is the first one that I've received. It's a great honour for me and I look forward to it."

But yesterday his mind was firmly focused on the "Great Dunes of Scotland" where the back nine holes of the championship course at Menie have already been largely shaped, awaiting extensive maraam and fescue grass planting.

The spectacular 14th hole, a par four in a natural valley between the high dunes on the edge of the North Sea, is already being hailed by observers as potentially one of the greatest and most challenging in the whole of world golf.

"The 14th hole is phenomenal," stated Trump. "But we have many holes of equal talent. Every hole is incredible.

"We are about four months in and we have done a tremendous amount of work. The back nine is largely shaped and that was probably the more difficult of the two in terms of shaping. I'm just getting a little glimpse of it now.

"The people love what we're doing. They love that I'm spending hundreds of millions of pounds on doing it. They love the fact that I'm creating a lot of jobs for the area and for Scotland.

"And I think, more than anything else, what they are going to love is we are creating the greatest golf course anywhere in the world because of this unbelievable piece of land.

"We are ahead of schedule. But, much more important than that, it is turning out to be even more magnificent than I thought. It is turning out beyond my wildest expectations.

"These are the largest dunes in the world and these are the most beautiful.And, as you know, I named them the Great Dunes of Scotland - with very little controversy. I had no controversy and I couldn't believe it. I was almost disappointed."

Trump stressed that his overriding aim, and that of Martin Hawtree, the renowned golf course architect who has designed the championship venue, was to work with nature.

Trump said: "The main thing that impresses me is how we have respected the dunes and the environment system and eco system. This is one of the great examples of how less is more. If you do too much, you can only make it worse. You can't make it better."

As he left the States to fly to Scotland to view the latest developments on the course, Trump left behind a media storm of speculation about his possible candidacy for the presidency. The speculation began after Time magazine published details of poll in New Hampshire, a key state in the primaries, where residents were asked about prospective Republican candidates to run against President Obama.

"The poll showed very strongly for Trump," said the tycoon. "So they wrote an article and then everyone went crazy.

"A lot of people have been asking me to run. I mean, I've had a lot of success. I haven't made a decision but I hear it's a huge story in the United States right now.

"It's not something I long to do, but it's something that, if I had to, I would."