Turnberry’s famed Ailsa course closed for additional renovations

As winter approaches on the Ayshire coast of Scotland, the sun traces a low arc across the sky. Days are short, leaving slim windows for golf. On the Ailsa course at Turnberry, there is no play at all.

A four-time host of the Open Championship, the famous course shut down last month for renovations by Martin Ebert of Mackenzie & Ebert design. Ebert is intimately familiar with the grounds, having carried out extensive changes to the Ailsa in 2015. That widely praised project, which brought the coast more prominently into play on several stretches of the course, included the transformation of the par-4 9th hole into a stunning cliff-side par-3. In 2023, the Ailsa was listed 18th on GOLF’s ranking of Top 100 Courses in the World. 

This time around, the most significant changes will take place on two front-side holes. On the par-5 7th, the green will be moved some 50 yards so that it perches on the coastline, above the Firth of Clyde. The par-4 8th, meanwhile, will see its tee shifted to the right of the new 7th green, a modification that will straighten the hole while enhancing views of Turnberry’s photogenic lighthouse at the turn.

Few golf-course projects come to fruition without robust exchanges between the architect and the course owner. Those conversations can be by turns collaborative and combative. In the case of Ebert and Turnberry’s owner, Donald Trump, the dynamic has featured a bit of both.

According to Ebert, Trump has called him the “most stubborn man” he has ever met.

The two have come to loggerheads on several occasions. During the 2015 renovations, for instance, the location of the 14th green became a subject of debate. Trump “wanted the green to be located on the peak of the old, crowned fairway where there was an old cairn stone,” Ebert told GOLF.com in an email last week. Ebert, for his part, favored creating a more sheltered green in a shallow valley. The architect stood his ground and eventually, Trump relented, though Ebert concedes that he might not have won the argument on design merits alone.

“It could have been the mention of a superstition that anyone who moves one of the old cairn stones would come to a sticky end that produced the desired result,” Ebert said. 

More recently, the two locked horns over the location of the par-3 6th green, which Trump wanted to have shifted to the left, closer to the coast. Ebert was dismayed by that idea, as the 6th was one of his favorite short holes on the course. But he realized he would likely have to do the owner’s bidding. 

“I was left looking at the options (for moving the green), and when the course manager Allan Patterson returned to see how I was getting on, he found me lying down on the green surface, kissing it goodbye,” Ebert said. 

Patterson, in turn, told Trump about the smooch. A few days later, Trump called Ebert to say that he hadn’t realized the depth of the architect’s attachment to the hole. The green, Trump told Ebert, could stay where it was. 

In other cases, it was Ebert who gave ground, the most notable example being the 9th hole, which Ebert had originally wanted to turn into a dangerous short par-4. Trump pushed for a long par-3 along the coast. 

“His argument was that iconic long par-3s leave much stronger impression on golfers,” Ebert said. “We had a lot of debate over that but, in the end, I have to agree.”

None of these changes have been put to the test in a major championship. The Open was last held at Turnberry in 2009, when Stewart Cink beat 59-year-old Tom Watson in a playoff, and the Ailsa course has since been removed from the championship rota by the R&A. In announcing that decision, in 2021, just days after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. capitol, R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers said the governing body would not return the Open to Turnberry “until we are convinced that the focus will be on the championship, the players and the course itself and we do not believe that is achievable in the current circumstances.” 

Turnberry’s status as a championship host is far from the only fraught topic in professional golf these days. The pro ranks are divided, with top talent split between rival circuits. TV viewership is down. And the increasingly lavish sums of money on the table — and the apparent need among players and organizations alike for more of it — have done little to bolster goodwill among fans.

In stark counterpoint, though, recreational golf is more popular than ever, with tee sheets at top courses booked solid months and, in some cases, years in advance. To get a crack at the Ailsa, recreational players will have to wait until April, when the days are longer and the course reopens to public play.