LARA YUNASKA, JAKE LEVINE, KATRINA KAUPP, EVP'S OF

TRUMP ORG - ERIC TRUMP, DAN SCAVINO, LARRY GLICK...

**HAND OVER $400,000.00 - IN MEMPHIS, TENN - TO ST. JUDE CHILDRENS RESEARCH HOSPITAL - RAISED DURING A 2009 ETF GOLF OUTING.  2010 EVENT WILL BE ON 9/14!!


Trump exec instrumental in purchase of golf club

Mike Benischek

Riding north on the Taconic State Parkway eight months ago in his boss' snow-white Rolls Royce, Dan Scavino's palms began to sweat.

On their way to inspect a golf course, Donald Trump had picked his executive vice president up at Trump National Golf Club, Westchester, the course where the two first met nearly 20 years ago, and where Scavino has held the title of general manager for 3 1/2 years.

Scavino had traveled with his world-famous boss to scout dozens of golf courses in the past. He had traveled on that same stretch of the Taconic hundreds of times, the route back to his Hopewell Junction home.

This time was different.

"I told him before we left, 'If you don't like this golf course at all, you can just get rid of me. Terminate me. So be it,' " recalled Scavino of the trip to see Branton Woods Golf Club on Stormville Road. "You don't want to waste his time driving a half-hour north from Westchester.

"I'm dying the whole drive up. I'm saying, 'I just put my job on the line for this golf course, I don't believe it.' "

Of course, there is a reason why Scavino was named an executive vice president two years ago at the age of 32.

"We're driving around the course and, as I see his eyes and his reactions, which you can read very well after you're with him for so long," Scavino said, "I'm like 'Yes, yes, I think I'm going to be OK here.' "

Branton Woods was on sale for most of 2009 with a listed price of $8 million. Less than a month after that visit, Trump made an offer to owner Eric Berstol of Empire Golf Management. On Dec. 23, the deal was completed and the course was officially renamed Trump National Golf Club, Hudson Valley, New York.

"Dan is the reason I bought this place," Trump said. "He kept talking about this place. He said, 'Mr. Trump, if you can buy it, buy it.'

"When it became available, I was able to buy it," said Trump, who owns 11 golf properties. "When I came up and saw it, it took me about five minutes to realize how good it was."

The reality television host said he had been aware of the course since it opened in 2001. Scavino had played Branton Woods, just miles from his home, many times, including several rounds with its general manager, Brian Freeswick. It was after a round with Freeswick that Scavino returned to his boss with the knowledge that the course was for sale. Freeswick said the staff was concerned for the property's future. Once Trump became the owner, the general manager was apprehensive.

"There were a lot of questions. I didn't know what his intentions were," Freeswick said. "But after driving the golf course with him for almost four hours — after he left I was very excited about the opportunity to No. 1, work for him and No. 2, see what he was going to do with this property."

"Dan introduced me to Brian who, I immediately, the first time I met him, once I knew I was getting (the course), I made him a job offer," Trump said. "He's been special. He's been working with Dan. I can't do better than these two."

Trump met Scavino nearly 20 years ago at Briar Hall Country Club, the property Trump would purchase soon after and turn into Trump Westchester, while Scavino, then a Yorktown High School student, worked as a caddie and in the bag room.

"Now he's running one of my biggest courses," Trump said.

As a caddie, Scavino met sports stars, such as Michael Jordan, and businessmen from Fortune 100 companies, such as the Coca-Cola executive who gave him a job after graduating from SUNY Plattsburgh in 1998. Starting as an account manager, Scavino became a district sales manager within two years. He then spent time as a sales representative for Galderma Laboratories in the pharmaceutical industry before rejoining the Trump organization as the assistant manager at the Briarcliff course in 2004.

"Going from a caddie to an EVP within the Trump organization is an accomplishment that I'm very proud of," said Scavino, whose wife, Jennifer, is an Arlington High School graduate. "I don't forget the caddie days. And I don't forget working in the bag room. And I don't forget how hard the people that are doing that now worked. I'll never forget my roots.

"I did it all over the last 15 years and I'm proud to be where I am within Donald's organization of 20,000 employees."

Still, eight months ago, Scavino put that job on the line in order to convince his boss to visit Branton Woods. Now, he can laugh about that nervous car ride and those sweaty palms.

"Getting (Trump Hudson Valley) is probably one of my proudest accomplishments to date," Scavino said. "Securing this golf club and him purchasing it and turning it into the future of what will, no doubt, be one of the greatest golf clubs in the world."

EVP&GM - Dan Scavino

Donald Trump breathes new life into Dutchess golf course

Mike Benischek

Every detail is scrutinized.

The shape of the new bunker in the eighth fairway. The design of the ceiling fans in the clubhouse. The color of one small tree to the left of the green on the first hole.

In the six months since Branton Woods Golf Course was purchased by Donald Trump and renamed Trump National Golf Club, Hudson Valley, New York, the changes to the already exclusive private course have come swiftly.

The biggest change may simply be the success of the Hopewell Junction property: A club that was on the market for most of 2009, causing apprehension for employees and prospective members alike, has nearly doubled its staff and boosted its membership by more than 40 percent, while giving jobs to local businesses.

"We spent a lot of money on the course and we're spending a lot of money making the clubhouse really beautiful," said Trump, who took over ownership on Dec. 23. "When it's completed, there won't be anything like it."

The real estate mogul and reality television host has been making sure of that personally. On average, Trump visits the Stormville Road course once a month to survey work done since his last inspection and leaves his staff with enough new directives to keep busy for another four weeks.

After breakfast during his latest visit in June, Trump looked out toward the ninth green from the clubhouse's newly constructed patio and asked his staff, "The clock is going where? Have we made the determination?"

What followed was a debate lasting nearly 15 minutes, taking the group through the clubhouse and out to the practice range. Along the way, the owner brought attention to the recently added cobblestone around the freshly paved cart paths, a sewer grate that he told his staff needed to be painted black — shiny black — as well as a chip in the molding on the re-painted white clubhouse exterior.

"I've missed that (chip) for a month. And he walked by — that's the difference," said Brian Freeswick, Trump Hudson Valley's general manager. "It's the detail in everything we're doing."

Earlier in the day, Trump was out on the course, using spray paint to mark off where and how new bunkers should be built, and inspecting the areas where a sixth set of tee boxes will be installed to lengthen the par-72 course, which already stretches 7,100 yards.

"There's a new idea every time he's here. And they're all great ideas and they all work," said Dan Scavino, the executive vice president and general manager of Trump National Golf Club, Westchester. "When he leaves, the expectation is to see it done the next time he's here."

Membership booming

Trump Hudson Valley's membership — at least the number of members — has changed as well, with 84 new faces on the course.

"We're in Dutchess County. We're never going to forget that, because we can't charge a six-figure initiation," Freeswick said. "That's not what we're looking for. We're looking to have people who live in this area who want to belong to a great private club, offer them that level of Trump experience."

Prospective members do not need a sponsor in order to join, but there is an application process and an interview to get to know the staff.

Dr. Gene Goetz, a Branton Woods member since the club went private six years ago, said members were concerned when the property went on the market.

"We were pretty happy to hear Donald Trump bought it, because he usually doesn't do anything halfway," Goetz said. "When he commits to something, he puts his all into it. It's shown with all the work that's been done here so far this year. It's incredible the amount of work that's been done."

Only a handful of Branton Woods' existing members left with the change in ownership. One way Trump retained members was by waiving the regular initiation fee new golfers have to pay.

"The annual subscription is up a little bit, but not by much," said Mary Reed, who became a Branton Woods member last year. "It was quite a pleasant surprise."

As was the most dramatic change Trump has made to the course — uncovering a lake.

Since previous owner Eric Bergstol designed the course in 2001, the right sides of the 15th and 16th fairways were bordered by trees.

"When I was here during the summer, I said, 'That looks like water over there,' " Trump said. "We removed some trees and now it's exposed and open and beautiful, and everyone is happy."

Not only does that lake serve as a hazard for golfers — one soon to become even more dangerous when Trump finishes shifting the 15th fairway to slope toward the water — but also the view from the patio has become a favorite of many members.

"We just saw there was some water through the trees, you didn't really know there was a lake there," Reed said. "It just gives a lovely view when looking from the clubhouse."

Much of the work being done on the property has been given to local businesses, like Stormville's Mr. Blacktop and Poughquag's Turfscapes Inc.

At its peak last year, Freeswick said the course had 60 employees, and every member of Branton Woods' staff has been retained. Right now, Trump Hudson Valley boasts 100 employees. The general manager said that number has gone up due to the increase in membership, and expects the trend to continue.

Most recently, the club filled openings for a four-caddie program that launched in June. One caddie is assigned to each foursome and is responsible for finding golfers' shots and providing assistance.

With more than 280 total members now, about 80 percent of whom are local residents, Scavino said there will come a time when the club stops accepting new members.

"There is a cap and it's to be determined," the Hopewell Junction resident said. "We did not realize the club was going to grow this fast. When Donald wants to cut it off, he'll cut it off."

Courses not concerned

Despite the influx of members to Trump Hudson Valley, both Dutchess Golf & Country Club President Bob Lynch and Red Hook Golf Club President Bob Kepple said the other clubs in the area are not concerned.

"When we get together at board meetings, we're always interested in what's going on with local golf courses," Kepple said. Red Hook is a semi-private course and Dutchess is a private course. "Mr. Trump's name never comes up. It's not something even in the same universe as us."

Scavino is likewise reluctant to look at the other clubs as competitors, "just because of the work that Donald's doing and the product we have."

Kepple called it a "complete comparison of apples and oranges."

Red Hook has waived its initiation fee for the past three years and charges $2,600 per year to play. Dutchess' initiation costs are $2,000 plus a $1,000 bond, with average dues of $5,500 for a single golf membership.

Beekman Country Club, a public course located six miles away from Trump Hudson Valley, has not been affected, said General Manager Helen West.

"Had he opened (Trump Hudson Valley) as a public course, that would have been a different story," she said, before pointing out the positive effects Trump's presence may bring. "The word is getting out. Having his fame and his name in Hopewell Junction ... by being in that town, that can only have positive repercussions ."

According to the National Golf Foundation's annual golf participation study, the number of golfers in America declined or remained steady each year through the 2000s, dropping from a little more than 30 million players to a little less than 26 million. In 2009, participation in private courses dropped by nearly 2 percent from 2008.

Red Hook and Dutchess reported fairly steady membership numbers from last year, with little impact from Trump's presence so far.

"We view that course as high, high-end," Lynch said, adding golfers may opt for a lower-cost alternative. "We're expecting to get some (positive) effect."

Trump Hudson Valley's prices will increase in the future, Scavino said, especially as the larger changes to the property are made. A new locker room that will cost a quarter of a million dollars is planned, as is installing a pool complex and eight tennis courts.

"If people want to get in, now is that time. Because that 10 grand (initiation) will be 15 grand to join. And then it will eventually be, 'Donald, should we make it 20?' 'Yeah.' " Scavino said. "(The dues) are going to be fairly increased each year. We're not going to knock the dues all the way up to $12,000 or $15,000. We're going to be very conscious of the market and the area that we have."

Trump currently has no plans for housing on the course premises. In Westchester, he built 17 golf villas nearby the course. There are also no plans to pursue developments outside of the golf course in the Hudson Valley.

"Here, we're just focused on making the club as good as it can be," said Trump while warming up on the practice range in June. He then talked with course Superintendent Doug Hedderick about how the grass was coming in, before driving toward the first tee in one of the club's brand-new golf carts.

"Things didn't change here for eight years," Freeswick said. "In six months, it's a different place. There's new life."

"This place is magic," Trump said. "This place just has amazing potential to be something really special."

Trading Shots With Donald Trump

 

Bedminster, N.J.

'Hook! Hook!" Donald J. Trump called as my drive on the eighth hole, already hooking some, veered ever closer to a lake. That's maybe not the most sporting wish for an opponent's ball (the drive ended up fine), but it was entirely in keeping with the tone and the spirit of the match he and I played a couple of weeks ago here—a tone established entirely by him.

Had I wished to establish a different tone, it would have been difficult. In Mr. Trump's world, whatever Mr. Trump wants, Mr. Trump gets. But trash-talk golf is what I often play with my buddies, and it made the round with my high-profile host instantly comfortable and fun.

On the next hole, when my ball stayed atop a closely mown slope fronting the green, he sidled over to it and said, "Geez, I'm amazed it didn't roll back down, because usually…"—he tapped the ball with his putter—"…oh, look, there it goes!" That was just a gag, of course. He replaced the ball and I won the hole with a par, to go two-up at the turn.

I had challenged Mr. Trump to this match—straight up, since we are both listed as four handicaps—as a way to get a read on his golf bona fides. At the course, we agreed to a friendly wager. If Mr. Trump won, he would receive a copy of the stippled "hedcut" image The Wall Street Journal often uses to illustrate stories about him, signed by the artist. If I won, Mr. Trump would record a voice-mail greeting for my 15-year-old daughter's cellphone, mentioning that her father had beaten him at golf.

Mr. Trump occupies many positions in the cultural firmament: real-estate mogul, best-selling author, high-society fixture, reality show host, beauty pageant owner and all-around celebrity icon. But quietly over the past decade (well, quietly by Trump standards) he has also become a golf impresario. Depending on when you ask him, he spends 20%, 10% or 5% of his time overseeing his golf businesses.

At last count he owns 12 top-notch courses, all with some variation of Trump in the name, and is developing a $1 billion golf resort on the North Sea coastline of Scotland. That one is controversial because many locals are against it; protesters have acquired an acre of land inside the resort's proposed boundaries from which to wage their "Tripping Up Trump" campaign. But thanks to Mr. Trump's considerable political and financial talents, with the help of influential Scottish business interests, the Aberdeenshire council appears ready to approve all the permits at its meeting Tuesday.

Nathaniel Welch/Redux Pictures for The Wall Street Journal

In the match, Donald Trump never left a lag putt more than 2 or 3 feet from the hole.

When I paid a visit to Mr. Trump's office in Manhattan's Trump Tower this spring, aerial photographs and architectural renderings of golf projects were strewn across his desk. "These are the greatest dunes in the world—80 feet tall," he said of the land he had acquired for the Scottish course. "They put the dunes at Bandon Dunes to shame," referring to the famed Oregon golf destination.

He agreed to the round—"You won't find other rich golf guys doing this, because they don't want to show off their lousy golf games," he said—and offered any of his courses as the venue. Trump National Los Angeles, which cost him $250 million to renovate after the 18th hole fell into the Pacific? Trump International West Palm Beach, near his Mar-a-Lago estate and club? Perhaps one of his newest acquisitions, Trump National Philadelphia, which he renamed from Pine Hill? (Golf marketing insight: "People love 'mountain' and they love 'valley,' but what's a 'hill'? Pffftt.")

I chose the New Course at Trump National Bedminster, in the horse country of New Jersey, because it's less than an hour from where I live and it hosted last year's U.S. Golf Association Junior Amateur (won by Jordan Spieth). Of all the Trump courses, it's said to be the one most likely to host a bigger USGA event some day—and hosting a U.S. Open or U.S. Amateur ranks at the top of his golf ambitions. The clubhouse at Trump National Bedminster was once the mansion of John DeLorean, the famed auto executive. Mr. Trump planted 270 maple trees along the mile-long drive up to the clubhouse ("Rees Jones called it the greatest entrance to any club in the world," he told me) and built two massive, 7,500-yard courses on the 600 acres he had to work with. "One writer called them the two best courses built anywhere in this millennium. I'm not sure what he meant by that, maybe just since 2000," Mr. Trump said, leaving open the possibility that the writer meant since the year 1010.

The original (Old) course at Bedminster, designed by Tom Fazio, is ranked No. 53 on Golfweek's list of the best modern designs and is No. 54 on Golf Magazine's top-100 list, but neither Bedminster course ranks with Golf Digest, a fact that irks Mr. Trump. "They don't give enough credit for building courses in population centers where people can actually play them. Anybody can build a course like Sand Hills out in the middle of nowhere, at $3 an acre," he said. Sand Hills in remote Mullen, Neb., is Golfweek's No. 1-rated modern course.

When I asked shortly before teeing off what motivated his involvement in golf, he said he liked building things and he liked owning land. He's also extremely competitive. "I only build courses that are 10s, or buy courses that are 10s or almost 10s and do whatever it takes to make them into 10s," he said. "I told Fazio, whatever the highest standard is, I want higher than that." During our round he named a few courses near courses he owns that he said he is "killing."

Mr. Trump pegged his first drive down the middle of the fairway, 240 yards. "Not bad for an old guy, right?" he said. At 64, he was giving me eight years. His swing is all hips—hips in the waggle, hips in the windup, hips in the follow-through. Roughly a third of his full swings in our match ended with a walk-through; that is, he put so much body into the effort that he had to step around with his back foot to keep from toppling forward. But this is something even Arnold Palmer and Gary Player do on occasion, and gets the job done. He foozled five or six shots, including his approach on No. 1 into a greenside swamp, but otherwise placed his drives in the fairways and his approaches on the greens with dismaying accuracy.

The match was hard-fought. On the par-five fourth hole, we both hit excellent drives that ended up 5 feet from each other, followed by three-wood shots that also ended up 5 feet apart. Mr. Trump dumped his approach into a bunker, giving me the hole, but on the next, a tough uphill par-four, he drained a 40-foot twister for par to win one back. Putting is definitely Mr. Trump's strength. He jabs at the ball with a short backstroke and a quirky, exaggerated follow-through, but never left a lag putt more than 2 or 3 feet from the hole.

The Trump Inc. Golf Empire

• Trump National Golf Club
Bedminster, N.J. (two courses)

• Trump National Golf Club

Colt's Neck, N.J.

• Trump National Golf Club
Washington, D.C.
Potomac Falls, Va. (two courses)

• Trump National Golf Club
Hudson Valley
Hopewell Junction, N.Y.

• Trump National Golf Club
Los Angeles
Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.

• Trump International Golf Club
West Palm Beach, Fla.

• Trump National Golf Club
Philadelphia, Pine Hill, N.J.

• Trump International Golf Club
Puerto Rico, Rio Grande, Puerto Rico

• Trump National Golf Club
Westchester, Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.

• Trump International Golf Club
Canouan Island, St. Vincent and The Grenadines

• Trump International Golf Club Scotland (pending), Balmedie, Aberdeen, Scotland

He also plays, perhaps not surprisingly, at a manic pace. We shared a cart, and were almost constantly darting out ahead of the two others in our foursome, Mickie Gallagher, the director of golf at Bedminster, and Larry Glick, Mr. Trump's executive vice president for golf. Our forecaddies sprinted down the fairways to keep up. The only letup in the action came when Mr. Trump drove me to the seldom-used, far-back championship tees (sometimes he actually drove onto the teeing ground—but he's the owner, who's going to complain?) to flaunt the holes in their full-length grandeur. "Is this a U.S. Open hole, or what?" he said.

His current preoccupation is ridding the course of unwanted trees. "The USGA never met a tree it liked," he said. He and Mr. Gallagher admired some recently denuded areas, now planted in fescue, and discussed which areas to deforest next. On the 10th hole, a 200-yard par-three, he showed me where he wants to build a new championship tee, at 230 yards. In fact, when the course superintendent drove out to pay him a visit while we were there, he gave the order to make it happen. "Make it a big and glamorous," he said. No need to consult a committee, or even the course architect, Tom Fazio II.

No one called Mr. Trump anything but Mr. Trump, including myself. He's the boss. At the grill that had been set up on a paved area at the turn, I was about to squirt some mustard on my hot dog when a staff member quickly redirected my efforts. "These are for Mr. Trump. You can use those," she said, pointing to an alternative condiment counter.

Down by one, Mr. Trump began paying special attention to my putting stroke at about the 11th hole, particularly the slight forward press I make with my hands immediately before beginning my takeaway. "Doesn't that open up the clubface?" he asked. I demonstrated why I didn't think it did, but he shook his head.

On the next hole I missed an 8-footer for par, to bring the match back to even. "I'm sure you opened the clubface there. That's why you missed," he said. "Mickie, I want you to give John Paul a 30-minute putting lesson after the round."

After three-putting from 30 feet on the next hole, to go one down in the match, I wondered whether Mr. Trump was trying to get in my head a little with his sudden concern for my putting stroke. There was no way to know for sure that this was gamesmanship, of course, but I did feel that the moment was ripe to ask him about the local opposition to his Scotland project.

"No, no, everything's in great shape," he assured me. "We'll be breaking ground July 1." Water off a duck's back.

At the 14th hole, in the face of a strong wind, he landed his seven-iron tee shot on the island green. "Look at this, look at this!" he said when his ball was in the air. "I love it!" I airmailed my ball over the green into the water, to go two down.

I won the 16th, with an up-and-down from the sand for par, but on 17, I hated to hear what I heard after Mr. Trump launched his approach shot toward the elevated green. "I love it! Can't hit it any better than that! Makes the bad guy's shot a little harder, right, John Paul?" When I got to the green, his ball was sitting 6 inches from the cup. That birdie won him the match, 2 and 1.

Honestly (well, semi-honestly), I wasn't that disappointed to lose. The match had been exciting and we both played well. Granting ourselves pars on the uncontested 18th hole, we scored identical 80s. Mr. Trump's hedcut is in the mail (after I get it framed). And he graciously offered to pay off, too, with this greeting for my daughter's phone:

"This is Donald Trump, you're calling Anna Belle. She's a great beauty, she's a fantastic young woman, she's brilliant. If you want to speak to her, just leave your number and maybe you'll be lucky enough for her to call you back. Good luck!"