BALMEDIE, SCOTLAND — The chilly, wind-whipped dunes and grasslands of the Scottish coast may have been the birthplace of golf, but that hasn't been much help to Donald Trump and his plans to create what he says will be the world's best golf course here.
Don't even start with the fact that the old Menie estate is said to be haunted by someone called the Green Lady. That's chump change compared with a nasty battle that has pitted local boosters and Scotland's new independence-minded government against those who complain that the New York real estate magnate is bullying his way across the foundations of Scottish environmental law.
Trump often seems to launch his development projects with a heavy wooden driver club; this time, he's landed in a bunker. At issue are Belmedie's sand dunes, a major part of which are protected as a "site of special scientific significance" under Scottish environmental law, removing them from any possibility of development.
"We already have some of the best courses in the world in Scotland, and the idea that another golf course and hotel is going to save us is absolutely grotesquely laughable," said Mickey Foote, a former producer for the punk rock group the Clash, who is now spokesman for Sustainable Aberdeenshire, a group fighting Trump's project.
"He's sold the people on the idea that it's wild, rough country and he's going to tame it, he's going to make it beautiful," Foote said. "I'm saying, it's perfectly beautiful as it is."
The battle has led to the firing of the local infrastructure committee chairman who rejected the project and recriminations against all seven committee members who voted against it.
It also has sunk the Scottish government into a quagmire of allegations. After newly elected Scottish National Party ministers rescued the project by declaring it a matter of national significance, newspapers revealed that SNP officials had held meetings with senior Trump Organization officials on the eve of the decision.
"The pressure that was put on the council was absolutely unprecedented," said Martin Ford, the committee chairman who was ousted after casting a tie-breaking vote against Trump. "This is not normal. Indeed, I think it's very dangerous," he said.
Most people in Aberdeen, the North Sea oil town a few miles south of Balmedie, are excited about the Trump International Golf Links, hoping it will lure world championship-class golf away from places such as St. Andrews and provide a solid new economic underpinning for when the oil runs out.
