MAGA-millions: How Donald Trump's second presidency could spark €160m Doonbeg boom

That revenue generation sits on top of up to €40m from the hotel to the local economy, and does not include millions more in additional spending in local bars, shops and restaurants.

“Irrespective of what your view is or what your political leanings might be, you really cannot deny (Donald Trump’s) interest in golf and his investment in golf, which is going to continue over the foreseeable future,” General Manager Joe Russell told us.

While there will be limits on what Trump can invest or do with his golfing properties while in office, the publicity and marketing from a second presidential outing will be golden for Doonbeg, building on the enormous traction since 2016.

Before Christmas, Trump Doonbeg announced profits of more than €2m in what was a record financial year (2023) for the County Clare golf links.

Significantly, accounts for the company which operates the resort – TIGL Ireland Enterprises Ltd – revealed that revenues rose by 12 per cent from €14.36m to €16.12m for 2023.

What has not yet been reported is that there was a doubling of increase in revenue for 2024, which we understand has soared to approximately €20m, marking another bumper year for business with an almost €4m lift in turnover. An identical growth pattern over the coming Trump term could see turnover hit €36m per year by 2028.

By the time 2024’s accounts are audited and released at the end of 2025 Doonbeg will have experienced another astonishing year of growth – assuming the US and global economies remain stable.

Some of the values around Doonbeg are astounding even ahead of Inauguration Day and into a year where a green fee will hit a peak-season price of €550.

The importance of the Trump connection has already pushed the golf club and hotel to the most in-demand course amongst high-end tour operators who purchase 53 per cent of green fees sold.

We reported last year that the Irish Golf Tour Operator Association in its ‘Value of IGTOA to the Irish Tourism Market’ report found that Trump Doonbeg was the most popular golf course in Ireland for inclusion in golf tours.

A staggering 91 per cent of operators arranged for groups to play Doonbeg, putting it ahead of Ballybunion, Royal Portrush, Royal County Down, Adare Manor, Ballyliffin, Co Louth (Baltray), Dooks and a host of trophy courses.

Doonbeg also featured highly amongst the number of operators who arranged for clients to stay at the hotel, sitting joint second alongside Adare Manor, Portmarnock Hotel & Golf Links, Rosapenna and Vaughan Lodge, with Actons Hotel in Kinsale at the top.

It is also in the Condé Nast Traveller Top 5 Resorts in Europe and holds a World Golf Awards – Ireland’s Best Golf Hotel gong — but there is no hiding from the Trump attraction for wealthy Americans who visit these shores for golf.

That attention, says Russell, will certainly increase again this second time around but it already sits at an exceptional bar when it comes to US tourists.

“Interest has always been there since 2016, and with the (Trump visit in 2019), but I think it’s no small harm that he is president again, because for the last eight years we have been in lights,” he explains.

“That places added pressure on us to ensure that your golf course is in tip-top shape and sometimes, between the cut and thrust of what’s going on in the world, or politics, we sometimes get a little bit of a bruise.

“But as I say to people sometimes, when those events happen: 'Look guys, isn’t it better to be working at a property where people know your property, rather than someplace which is not as well known'.” 

Doonbeg is an integral piece of the Trump Golf empire, where 18 prestigious properties around the world are under the ownership of the incoming President, including Turnberry in Scotland and Doral in Miami with its fabled Blue Monster and Red Tiger courses.

For all of his US golf courses, sweeping from LA to New York and from New Jersey down to Florida, Trump always believed that the set was incomplete without an Irish golf links, a move which came two years before his first election victory.

The previous owners Kiawah Development Partners sold Doonbeg to King Street Capital in New York who put the property into receivership, which despite early post recessionary times, generated 90 expressions of interest including one from Trump Golf.

At this point up to €80m had been spent developing the resort, from its initial concept in the early 1990s through the Doonbeg Community Development Company which began promoting the idea of a golf course at Doonbeg.

The group urged Shannon Development to obtain purchase options for 377 acres of links-land from four local farming families, whereby Kiawah Development Partners, acquired the options from Shannon Development and closed the sale in December 1999.

Construction of the golf course commenced in December 1999, with private investment initially hitting €25 million to cover facilities, infrastructure and land costs, with €55m more poured in before the Trump Organisation purchased it in February 2014.

“Trump came in on the last furlong,” laughs Joe Russell.

That first Trump visit is something the GM, who is now more than two decades running the resort, remembers vividly as a reassuring moment in Doonbeg’s brief, yet successful, history.

“When Donald Trump came here in 2014 he travelled out from Shannon Airport and we took a drive by the golf course, which at the time had been hit by a tremendous storm (Darwin) and lost five greens,” he continues.

“Funnily enough Storm Darragh recently was the most damaging since then. He went around the golf course and saw the damage that had been done by the storm, some of which we were repairing at that time and he said to me standing on the 18th green: 'I never truly realised how beautiful Doonbeg was'. 

"He was looking at the lodge and back across the bay and the following morning we went out playing golf and for every hole we visited he had something to say about it, about the hole itself or from a golfer’s or visitor’s perspective — 'We are going to make this golf course better’ — and between the winters of 2014 and 2015 works took place and we did a relaunch in 2016, where shortly thereafter he became president.” 

That first successful election did enormous traction for Doonbeg, explains Russell: “When he became president the profile of our property lifted. It was on every media outlet in the world, and the other thing was when he visited in 2019, the eyes of the world were on Doonbeg.” 

The value of that Trump connection to the wider Doonbeg area is incredible where “between direct payroll and supplies, we contribute somewhere between €9m and €10m to the local economy”.

These direct local investments from the resort to the community should exceed €40m over the lifetime of the next term in office coming to approximately €160m in revenue generation during the Trump presidency.

So while Donald Trump certainly divides opinion, and undoubtedly his next four years will be an interesting period for the US and perhaps the world, there is no doubting his capacity to generate golfing revenue - all good news for Doonbeg.

Or as Joe Russell summarises: “To have an owner that is that interested in golf, with the resources he has, can only be good for a golf course and a golf business.”