Page 176 - Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges into Success

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P RIME R EAL E ST A TE F ALLS INTO THE P ACIFIC

Compare that to $61 million for one hole. It was a good deal. I
had to make a choice—should I just fix it and be done with it
because it was already a nice enough course—or should I go all
out and make it over into one of the most celebrated courses in
the world?
I think you can guess which choice I made. It wasn’t the
easy choice, but it was the best one. I estimated that to redo the
entire course, including reconstruction of the fallen hole, would
cost me around $265 million. So how do I explain $61 million
for one hole? Well, this was what was involved: A series of walls,
made from local Palos Verdes rock quarried at $600 a ton, and a
structural layer built underneath the hole that goes down the
cliff to the beach, which means that every 10 feet is a steel plat-
form—which provides a very strong structure. This was intri-
cate and difficult work.
I will admit I had some second thoughts about spending that
much on one hole. That’s a huge investment, no matter how
much money you have. And the difficulties were astounding.
What I did was something that I would suggest to you: Look at
the solution—not the problem. I focused on the spectacular out-
come I wanted, and it got done. I had moments of doubt, when I
wondered how feasible my “think big” attitude was going to be
in this situation, and where it might lead me. Well, I guess I like
cliffhangers because it definitely had that feeling about it.
On the positive side of things, I brought in Pete Dye, one of
the legends in golf course design, to remake Ocean Trails into a
worthy rival to Pebble Beach. If anyone in the industry could do
that, Pete Dye could. I wanted to make this course the best, and
we completely redesigned it. It’s brand new. It includes water-
falls and a great driving range. In order to build the driving
range, I had to wipe out about 30 housing lots to have the
appropriate space. That means about $300 million because each
lot would bring about $10 million—so all these things had to be
considered. Also, everything was new, from the traps and sand

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