Forbes: Declared Losses Now At "Roughly $90 Million" On Trump's European Golf Resorts

On top of the Scotsman’s reporting about Trump Golf’s year-end Scottish property declarations, Forbes’ Dan Alexander couples Doonbeg’s losses into the tally.

Since the president opened his Aberdeen course in 2012, he has lost $15.5 million. Business has been even worse at Turnberry, which Trump bought in 2014 for $65 million. Despite investing an additional $75 million or so to fix up the property from 2014 to 2018, the place piled up losses of $58 million, according to an analysis of financial reports. The 2019 figures, first reported by the Scotsman, bring Turnberry’s total losses to $61 million since 2014.

The Turnberry and Aberdeen properties make up half of Trump’s troubled portfolio of golf resorts. In Doonbeg, Ireland, he spent nearly $20 million on a third property, the Trump International Golf Links & Hotel, in 2014. The president poured in another $12 million from 2015 to 2018, but he failed to see much of a return, racking up about $9 million in losses. Irish documents released in December show an additional $1.5 million of losses in 2019.

The Turnberry losses seem the least alarming given the amount of money put into the resort, but the lack of turnaround at Trump International Aberdeen and Doonbeg can’t bode well for the future given the relatively low development or purchase costs.

In other golf-related news, the (reluctantly) outgoing President cut short a busy slate of Florida golf to return to Washington so he could work the phones. His holiday golf included rounds with a group that included Rickie Fowler and another with Bernhard Langer, who vouched for the pardon of developer James Batmasian, reports the Daily Mail’s Harriet Alexander.

On December 23, Trump announced that he was pardoning South Florida real estate developer James Batmasian. The pardon was backed by Langer, GOP Congressman Brian Mast and 'many others from the South Flroida community', according to a White House statement.