Golf row has made this resort hot

Standing on the 13th hole of his developing "best golf course in the world", the tycoon yesterday hit the first shot struck on the links, which is beginning to appear from the sand dunes at Balmedie, near Aberdeen.

The 225-yard par 3 offered a significant challenge to the 2-handicapper. A club and ball appeared, but no tee so one was manufactured from a photographer's pen. He duly smashed two drives, one falling off to the right, the second rolling through the back of the green.

Miraculously, when he reached the manicured green, a ball appeared 15ft from the hole and The Donald duly buried it for the cameras.

"Pretty good, right", he called modestly to the watching media. "No-one knew Trump could do that."

Earlier, he said the controversy surrounding the resort had made the project "hot", generating coverage across the globe.

The tycoon flew into Aberdeen from New York for a three-day visit to oversee the 50 million spent on the site to date and to announce that bookings can be made from next month with the course due to open on 1 July next year, although prices have yet to be confirmed.

The course, he declared, was "on schedule, on budget and even better than I anticipated" and he hopes Sir Sean Connery and First Minister Alex Salmond will do the honours and perform the opening ceremony.

"The hard work has been done, now the artistry begins", he said.

It will, however, start life with a temporary clubhouse while a site is finalised and planning permission sought for a permanent building. After that, the timescale for the bigger 750m project which now includes a ballroom, hotel and housing, is a bit more vague.

He said: "We are waiting for the market to change on that. The world has crashed. Everything we do will be dependent on market conditions. The course will be successful because of the incredible site and the incredible topography.

"I chose to build the golf component because it's so good and I think irreplaceable. I don't think anything like this will ever be built again. Even though the market was bad I decided to go ahead because I think it will set the tone for the site itself."

Mr Trump's latest visit comes a year after construction started on the course and halfway through the works programme.

He touched down three hours late in his new Boeing 757-200 customised for the billionaire, including master bedroom with shower, conference room, three extra bathrooms and five galleys. His supermodel wife Melania and son Barron, five, are due to arrive from Paris today.It also comes just a few days after a documentary You've Been Trumped, giving a critical account of the golf resort story, was shown in Aberdeen. The film is to be given three extra screenings due to demand.

Mr Trump said: "The press has done me a great favour in a way because by creating controversy, much of it that didn't even exist involving a tiny group of people. It's gotten press all over the world. It's made the project hot.

"I have people calling from all over me asking 'when is it opening, I want to come to play it'. The truth is, without the controversy no-one would even know I was building a course."

He said he has enhanced the environment of the dunes, which he said were in "horrible disrepair" when he bought it. "It was a dump," he said. "Cars were dumped on it, rotted oil cans were dumped on it. It was in really terrible shape but we have now made it pristine and we have preserved the dunes."

A walk around the 7,600-yard course followed, Mr Trump posing for pictures and conducting live TV interviews on the tee, a red baseball hat sheltering his famous hair from the North Sea breeze. "It's an amazing scene," he said of the developing course. "There's just nothing like it."

Golf row has made this resort hot - Donald Trump