Trump National Golf Club, Los Angeles is a public
golf club
A golf club is a club used to hit a golf ball in a game of golf. Each club is composed of a shaft with a grip and a club head. Woods are mainly used for long-distance fairway or tee shots; irons, the most versatile class, are used for a variety ...
in
Rancho Palos Verdes, California with a course designed by
Pete Dye
Paul Dye Jr. (December 29, 1925 – January 9, 2020), known as Pete Dye, was an American golf course designer and a member of a family of course designers. He was married to fellow designer and amateur champion Alice Dye.
Early life
Dye was ...
and Donald J. Trump Signature Design.
It is owned by
The Trump Organization
The Trump Organization is a group of about 500 business entities of which Donald Trump is the sole or principal owner. Around 250 of these entities use the Trump name. The organization was founded in 1927 by Donald Trump's paternal grandmothe ...
.
Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles was formerly known as Ocean Trails Golf Club, an 18–hole course designed by Pete Dye, which was about to open when a landslide occurred in June 1999, and the 18th hole slid toward the
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...
. The Ocean Trails Golf Club subsequently went into bankruptcy, and on November 26, 2002, Trump bought the property for $27 million, intending to redesign the course.
It includes a clubhouse.
It is ranked among the ''Top 100 Courses You Can Play'' by ''
Golf Magazine
''Golf Magazine'' is a monthly golf magazine. It was started in April 1959 by Universal Publishing and Distributing, who sold it to Times Mirror in 1972. Time Inc. acquired it in 2000. It was acquired by Howard Milstein in 2018. It was the world ...
''.
The club is known for its views of the
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...
and
Catalina Island. The course featured three
artificial waterfall
An artificial waterfall is a water feature or fountain which imitates a natural waterfall.
Artificial waterfalls have long been featured in traditional Japanese gardens, where they can serve to highlight a scene or to provide focus. The classic ...
s until they were removed during the
2012–15 drought.
The
Michael Douglas
Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is an American actor and film producer. He has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the A ...
Pro-Celebrity and Friends Golf Tournament takes place there annually, in April.
At a total cost of $264 million, it would be the most expensive golf course ever constructed.
Trump's representatives claimed the course was worth $10 million in dealing with the
L.A. County property tax assessor two years after the course opened.
History
Trump National's predecessor, the Ocean Trails Golf Club, was part of a property owned by developer Edward Zuckerman and a partner. Prior to the Zuckerman purchase, the property was used as a farm.
The golf course is on the
Palos Verdes Peninsula
The Palos Verdes Peninsula (''Palos Verdes'', Spanish for "Green Sticks") is a landform and a geographic sub-region of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, within southwestern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. Located in the S ...
known for its landslides.
The height of the
peninsula of above
sea level
Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardise ...
and the action of the waves are two main contributing factors for the landslides. The
stratification
Stratification may refer to:
Mathematics
* Stratification (mathematics), any consistent assignment of numbers to predicate symbols
* Data stratification in statistics
Earth sciences
* Stable and unstable stratification
* Stratification, or st ...
of the
sedimentary rock
Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles ...
below the course is visible in the high cliffs of the area as it gradually slopes seaward. The sloping and stratification create favorable conditions for the generation of landslides. As a result, homes and roads have been lost to the ocean in that area.
In the area occupied by the golf course and its vicinity, there are three ancient landslides which have been named by
geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althoug ...
s as A, B and C respectively.
The green of the Ocean Trails golf course 18th hole and half of its fairway were on top of ancient landslide C.
On June 2, 1999 the construction on the $126 million Ocean Trails golf course was almost complete and the course was close to its scheduled opening when a landslide unexpectedly occurred, caused by the sudden reactivation of ancient landslide C,
and of the 18th hole
fairway disappeared under the ocean when a
fissure
A fissure is a long, narrow crack opening along the surface of Earth. The term is derived from the Latin word , which means 'cleft' or 'crack'. Fissures emerge in Earth's crust, on ice sheets and glaciers, and on volcanoes.
Ground fissure
...
parallel to the cliff appeared and subsequently collapsed.
A long island was created due to the landslide, temporarily trapping a local resident.
The landslide caused most of the 496 yard par 4 18th hole to slide toward the ocean,
including the fairway and
green
Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combi ...
.
Also due to the slide, bike paths, walking paths, the edge of the
bluffs and a segment of an
LA County
Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is the ...
sewer line disappeared. It is believed that fluid discharge from the
sewer line, probably leaking before the slide, acted as a
lubricant on the thin underlying layer of
bentonite
Bentonite () is an absorbent swelling clay consisting mostly of montmorillonite (a type of smectite) which can either be Na-montmorillonite or Ca-montmorillonite. Na-montmorillonite has a considerably greater swelling capacity than Ca-m ...
, which became saturated with liquid sewage in turn, and this acted as a facilitator for the stratified geological accumulations to slide relative to each other.
Bentonite, a form of clay, exhibits a low
frictional coefficient
Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and material elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction:
*Dry friction is a force that opposes the relative lateral motion of t ...
when wet, i.e. it becomes slippery.
The golf course opened with only 15 holes because of the landslide.
The landslide caused the Ocean Trails Golf Course construction project to go into
bankruptcy. Covered by insurance funds, a massive geotechnical project was launched to reconstruct the 18th hole using 1,250,000 cubic yards of earth to fill it.
The stabilization work and the slide caused cosmetic damage to the course.
At the time, golf course historian Geoff Shackelford said that at the then projected cost of repair of more than $20 million, the 18th hole would have been "the most expensive single hole in history".
After three years, legal issues between the involved banks and developers caused the geological stabilization work to stop.
In 2002 Donald Trump stepped in and bought the property,
including the golf course, with the intention of finalizing construction and repairs by the summer of 2003. On January 20, 2006 the 18-hole Trump National Golf Club opened in Los Angeles. The reinforcement fill designed to stabilize the area affected by the slide is located under holes 17 and 18.
During the massive geological stabilization process the golf course was open for business.
The geological stabilization process was based on a
geotechnical
Geotechnical engineering is the branch of civil engineering concerned with the engineering behavior of earth materials. It uses the principles of soil mechanics and rock mechanics for the solution of its respective engineering problems. It al ...
design involving the use of
geosynthetic
Geosynthetics are synthetic products used to stabilize terrain. They are generally polymeric products used to solve civil engineering problems. This includes eight main product categories: geotextiles, geogrids, geonets, geomembranes, geosynthet ...
materials designed to enhance the cohesion and strength of the landslide fill.
Asked about the safety of the work, Trump said: "If I'm ever in California for an earthquake, this is where I want to be standing".
In 2008 Trump sued the city of
Rancho Palos Verdes
Rancho Palos Verdes (Spanish for "Green Sticks Ranch") is a coastal city located in Los Angeles County, California atop the bluffs of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, neighboring other cities in the Palos Verdes Hills, including Palos Verdes Est ...
for $100 million, alleging that the city did not allow him to make the improvements needed to maintain the Trump image.
The lawsuit was settled in 2012 for undisclosed terms.
In 2015, the course was to have become the host of the
PGA Grand Slam of Golf. The tournament was cancelled due to Trump's comments about illegal immigrants.
Sports teams and charities continued to move their charity-golf tournaments to other venues during his presidency.
Media
*The Trump National Los Angeles was the setting for the filming of Golf Channel's ''
The Big Break VI: Trump National''.
*The Trump National Los Angeles was also the setting for the golf course shots in "50 First Dates", with Catalina Island clearly seen in some of the shots.
*In the 2008 film
Step Brothers, the course was used for the "Catalina Wine Mixer" scenes, doubling as Catalina Island.
*In the 2014 film
Horrible Bosses 2
''Horrible Bosses 2'' is a 2014 American crime comedy directed by Sean Anders and written by Anders and John Morris. A sequel to 2011's ''Horrible Bosses'', the film stars Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx ...
, the 'cancel the order' scene was filmed at the golf course.
*The
Modern Family
''Modern Family'' is an American family sitcom television series created by Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan for the American Broadcasting Company. It ran for 11 seasons, from September 23, 2009, to April 8, 2020. It follows the lives of th ...
2014 episode
The Wedding (Part 2) was filmed at the golf course.
*In 2016 it was the filming location for and the subject of the
Adult Swim
Adult Swim (AS; stylized as dult swim'' and often abbreviated as s'') is an American adult-oriented night-time cable television channel that shares channel space with the basic cable network Cartoon Network and is programmed by its in-house ...
special The Adult Swim Golf Classic which depicted Trump National Los Angeles hosting a golf tournament in 1966 sponsored by the fictional cigarette company Portnoy 100s.
The Adult Swim Golf Classic
(Retrieved from the adultswim.com website on 09 June)
See also
* Donald Trump and golf
*List of things named after Donald Trump
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby uni ...
References
External links
*
{{Trump businesses
Golf clubs and courses in California
Palos Verdes Peninsula
Landslides in the United States
Assets owned by the Trump Organization
Landslides in 1999
Donald Trump real estate