Shane Lowry bounded off the 18th green with the course record 62 on his scorecard and a grin cracking across his face.
“Shaney, you love our course,” yelled out Larry Glick, the head of the Trump International golf portfolio, to which he replied that he wasn’t so sure he would still love it tomorrow beneath lashing rains and 20mph winds.
Friday at the Irish Open was the calm before every kind of storm. The louring skies of Thursday disappeared and the wind blew more gently, leaving thousands of fans plodding around the dunes with jackets clutched in their hands, abashedly asking those around them if they had thought to pack any factor 50. This was a sunny interregnum, however, with an onslaught of wind and rain promised from Saturday morning. But of course the day was truly about making the final preparations for the tiger coming to tea.
Nobody could tell us with confidence what time Donald Trump is expected to touch down in Doonbeg. Some gardaí said they heard 12.30pm, some said 2pm and some said 3pm; most said they had heard so many different times that they were operating off the expectation that he’d turn up at some stage.
RM Block
The security presence swelled as the day went by, with swarms of yellow-jacketed, crimson-cheeked gardaí sprouting in profusions at every gate, walkway, road entrance and grandstand you could see. One garda said he has been told to be prepared to work until Monday, should play be significantly delayed by Saturday’s inclement weather and Trump’s ostentatious touchdown.
These gardaí have been buttressed by plainclothes detectives and members of the Garda Armed Support Unit, while moss-green Irish Army vehicles arrived across the day, too. The Garda Press Office declined to give us a total figure for the number of gardaí on site but the mid-hundreds is a conservative estimate.
When the marshals called for hush at the first tee box in the morning, the air was punctured by the clank and smack of workmen behind the grandstand, who were busy building a scaffold tower beside the hotel entrance. A nearby garda told us its purpose is as a TV camera position, though one security guard said it’s a sniper tower before laughing awkwardly to tell us she was only joking.
Still, nothing feels implausible when it comes to securing the US president. Another security guard told us Secret Service personnel have been on site since last week, claiming he was told there were 80 present before he leant in a little closer to say he wouldn’t be surprised if the figure was much higher. Everyone stood around as if they were extras in some American TV show, Waiting for Potus.
There have certainly been American personnel on site in advance of the tournament, with some of them busy adding steel to reinforce the helipad so that it will be able to bear the weight of the Marine One helicopter in which Trump will land. There are multiple versions of the same helicopter – some fly as decoys when the president is in the air – and one of these choppers landed successfully during a test run on Wednesday night.
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Other advance arrivals include the president’s son Eric, who arrived on Thursday. Everyone working at the tournament, from players all the way down to lowly journalists, have had to receive Garda clearance to be on site from Friday evening, and so must carry an additional piece of accreditation to be allowed to do their jobs. The sense of humour of some tournament officials has survived the stern preparations, with the hotel cat, Missy, handed her own official tournament accreditation in which she is cleared for attendance as the CEO of Daytime Naps.
There will be additional security checks for everyone accessing the golf course from Saturday – media have been told to expect airport-style scanners – while there are restrictions on airspace to the extent that anyone as far as Adare or Tulla who tries to fly a drone this weekend may face penalties for doing so. With the course accessible only via shuttle buses from car parks more than 10km away, it will be extremely difficult for any non-ticket holder to make any kind of visible protest. Some past protests can still be seen, however.
Lying on the first tee box this week is a small sign for the attention of the players, explaining that the 10th green is not playing as well as the other greens on the course because of an “external incident”. That incident was damage caused to the green by protesters in March, who defaced part of the course with graffiti of messages supporting Palestine and condemning Trump.
There was not enough time to lay a new green and so they have tried to salvage the surface as best they can. It is notably patchy and brown, however, and is playing much more slowly than the other greens on the course. This will be an issue for Lowry and everyone else contending to win the golf tournament that feels like an afterthought.
