By Vic Williams

Donald Trump points to the 18th hole at his newest pet project, Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles (formerly Ocean Trails).

Doing what you love will always make you a winner and after spending many happy hours on golf courses, I decided to build some of my own. I am now one of the busiest golf course developers in the United States, with two award-winning, internationally acclaimed courses fully operational and two more in the works.

--How to Get Rich, by Donald Trump with Meredith McIver, Random House, 2004

On the man's head was a brand-new black golf hat emblazoned with his own gold-stitched, wedding-script logo. On his feet was a pair of bright-white leather golf shoes.

In between was Donald Trump.

Sure there's gray area to this guy -- he's human after all -- but we don't pay attention to those subtleties, nor does he want us to. As a businessman, he's the ultimate absolutist, settling for nothing less than the best this and the most incredible that. If he's gonna put his name on it, it's gotta be great, larger than life.

The Donald lives his whole life that way, in penthouses and boardrooms and jets. He takes an elevator to work from his gilt-edged palace atop Trump Tower. He married two gorgeous blondes and now is engaged to an exotic European brunette. He made his first Manhattan real estate deal in the early 1970s and has since made and lost -- and made again -- billions of dollars, all the while building his name into an unstoppable brand. He stars in a ratings-topping TV series. His is the ultimate power life played out in shades not of gray but of green.

Green money, green envy. The green of go.

And let's not forget the green of grass, the color of golf. On that score, Trump is one of us. He loves the game. Loves it enough to spend millions on building golf courses that not only reflect his personality and philosophy of what it means to live the American good life, but what the ultimate modern layout should look and feel like, in no uncertain terms.

Trump's first two  "masterpieces" -- Trump International at Mar-a-Lago in South Florida and Trump National in Westchester County, N.Y. -- are undeniably great. They've won the awards and converted the naysayers. And he's already gone on record with hopes of someday bringing the U.S. Open to his new course in Bedminster, N.J., which is built on the former estate of disgraced auto magnate John DeLorean.

But does a West Coast golfer really care about those three mega-private islands of well-wrought excess? Well, yeah, to a point. It's always fun to read how the other half hacks. But when do we get Trumped out here in the hinterlands?

How about now. The Donald is here among us, or should we say, has been here quite awhile now, firing orders and asking pointed questions at a cadre of trusted managers, assorted clubhouse underlings, sodlayers and stonemasons on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. On this particular day, as a semi-overcast summer Saturday morning unfolded around him, he was in full form -- six-feet-something tall and broad-shouldered, tieless in a dark blue suit, surveying the site of his first true West Coast conquest: Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles, formerly known as Ocean Trails. Fairways & Greens was fortunate enough to come along for a walk on the wildly rich side, one that he'll repeat every few weeks until the course reopens in late December or early January.

"Look at this itinerary!" he said, waving a typed schedule around the clubhouse. "Nine a.m., Fairways & Greens. One o'clock, a meeting with Jeff Zuckerman at NBC. Three o'clock, a press conference in Hollywood. I was gonna see if I could push you guys back to Tuesday, but I heard you flew in for me, so here I am with Vic Williams and f***in' Fairways & Greens."

Thus began a two-hour tour of much more than a two-mile slab of Pacific coastline that will bear little resemblance to what came before. It was also a tour of Trump himself -- his management style, perfectionism, business ethic, ego and, of course, temper. It was understood that turbulence was probable if not inevitable. But the trip began calmly and earnestly, if those words even have meaning when you're in Trump's orbit.

"When this course opened, it got great reviews, but they never really took advantage of That!," he said, walking out the golf shop door and pointing at the Pacific. "And it wasn't a big course. It was 6,400 yards, meaning the pros would be playing driver-wedge on every hole. I do big. Championship stuff. And when it's done, it'll be the best course in California -- better than Pebble Beach."

Big words for a big name. As it should be.

Some would say Trump conquered Hollywood when the The Apprentice became a hit. But that weekly Darwinian drama, currently in its second season, has a New Yorker's heart. Trump is as New York as Lady Liberty or the Yankees. He's a high-rise guy. Not until his first public course completes its nearly $300 million metamorphosis, when the Man cuts the ribbon on the first tee of his latest Wonder of the Golf World (likely shoulder-to-shoulder with Gov. Arnold himself, whom Trump says is doing a great job) will he become a complete, horizontal, L.A.-style magnate. This is conquest at ground level -- and sea level -- for all to see.

Trump National Los Angeles brings the two Trumps -- familiar New Yorker and newly minted Californian -- together. It's essentially the high-rise Trump ethic laid sideways into a rolling, snow white-bunkered, fantastically water-featured testament to big-bucks vision and engineering genius.

NEW BIGSHOT IN TOWN  

I like to move quickly, but if a situation requires patience, I will be patient. The speed depends on the circumstances and I keep my objective in mind at all times. This alone can be a patience pill. I've spent from five minutes to fifteen years waiting for a deal. -- How to Get Rich, Page 133

Until last year, Ocean Trails was known more for what it didn't have (an 18th hole) than what it did (unobstructed views of the Pacific). Architect Pete Dye went the blend-into-the-scenery links route. He wanted nothing to announce itself as anything but natural to the site.

This was Los Angeles, after all -- laid-back on the surface, with all the artifice hidden away on Hollywood soundstages or behind Disneyland's mile-high hedges. So Dye's vision was all set and seamless. But as Ocean Trails opened its doors in 1999, its final hole slid several feet toward the surf. A gaggle of water lines beneath the fairway finally gave way, compromising the very earth on which its grass was planted. Three adjacent holes were also out of commission.

What do you call a brand-new 15-holer?

Bankruptcy in the making.

Enter The Donald. He had been eyeing Ocean Trails since The Calamity and, in true real estate magnate fashion, swooped into bankruptcy court with an offer the original owners couldn't refuse. Basically he got the land, course and clubhouse for a song -- $27 million. The real expense came into play as Trump weighed his options for the beleaguered but beautiful site.

"I said, ÔLook, we have two choices: We can rebuild the 18th hole and be done, or I can re-do the whole place and have a course that's gonna be better than Pebble Beach. I was going to do a fix-up and make a lot of money with the houses and have a nice course in California. Then I decided to go a totally different route. It's an entirely new course. I don't think I can even use the word Ôrebuilt.' We're building a masterpiece -- 7,350 yards, totally widened and lengthened. We had to get very significant approvals from the coastal commission. They've been fantastic. They know what I build is quality, and they've approved it."

A big fan of the Fazio family's work (brothers Tom and Jim designed the courses in Florida and New York, and father Tom is finishing up yet another private Trump National in Bedminster, N.J.), he brought in the elder Fazio to Trumpify Ocean Trails and throw down the gauntlet to a certain famous seaside track 250 miles up the coast.

 "Pebble has the tradition, but [it and Trump National] are really two different types of facilities," says Mike Van der Goes, former Ocean Trails director of golf whom Trump promoted to general manager in February. "There you're on Carmel Bay, versus the ocean; there you've got big trees versus the links style here. The similarity will be that St. Andrews type of a feel, atmosphere and challenge here on the peninsula, versus the bay. He wants it to be a world-class facility, and he's willing to allocate the funds to do so."

GROUND ZERO, PLUS $61 MILLION

Trump National's new final hole is now and forever the most expensive in golf history, and he is visibly proud of the construction know-how it took to bring it to life.

 "This area slid down toward the ocean," he said from a flattened mount of dirt that is now the No. 12 tee.

"So to solve the problem, they did the craziest thing, the greatest overdesign I've ever seen. Instead of just pushing it around, they took the earth and brought it down to the ocean -- 3 million yards. There may be two courses in the United States where 3 million yards were moved; one of them I have, in Palm Beach."

That's 6 million yards in all, if you're keeping score.

"Everything you see is brand new," he continued. "Two years ago it was down to the beach, and they moved all 3 million yards over to three holes, to store it. So the golf course was open just minimally."

As Ocean Trailers banged it around the snakely rerouted

15 operational holes, they no doubt started to wonder what the new owner had up his gold cufflinked sleeves. Little by little, his plans took shape.

"We did two things on No. 18. Before, it was a 434-yard par 4, a pretty good finishing hole. Now it's 510, and three times wider. We were able to pick up area along the water, but equally important is a series of walls above the hole. Instead of having steep drops, we have a tiered effect. That's the first thing we did."

Built entirely of Palos Verdes rock quarried from the site at $600 a ton, the walls are cut large and rough around the golf course, intricate and smooth around the clubhouse; the stonemason hired by project manager Vinnie Stellio is, says Trump, "amazing, the best I've ever seen." And it's hard to argue when you spy his work -- which indeed allowed Trump to reclaim dozens of acres of oceanfront property. He's also using the rock in the construction of the course's three waterfalls -- not the "fake" material mentioned in a recent  Golf Digest article (which prompted a correction letter from Trump himself).

But the walls and rocks aren't what make No. 18 an engineering marvel. Trump pointed to a line along the hole's right edge where the earth had collapsed, then waved his arm westward and downward.

"Underneath this hole, every 10 feet down to the beach,  they have built a structural layer -- steel and structural platform. It's a building in itself. This is the safest place in California. When the world comes to an end, this is where you want to be standing."

Especially when you're standing on a $61 million investment for one hole. "The whole course is going to cost around $260 million," Trump told Fairways & Greens last winter. "Good thing most if it isn't my money."

True enough: An insurance company picked up most of the tab for No. 18, though Trump has since sunk another $35 million into the big picture.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Yeah, No. 18 is a killer finisher. From the tips, the Ernies and Tigers of the world will look at 510 yards of hellacious headwind fun, with more than a dozen bunkers to negotiate from tee to green and an approach directly into a backdrop of blue-gray sea. The putting surface itself is half again as big as Pebble's legendary final green, with a back-left Sunday pin placement that leaves no room for equivocation. Go too long into a deep bunker or left over the edge and you'll need only remember Trump's own TV-tested words and America's latest pop culture mantra: You're fired.

But is it destined to be Trump National's "signature hole?" Not in his mind.

"We'll have several of them out here, but I think it'll be No. 10," he says. "The tee sits out on a peninsula, and you're going over the ocean, onto the fairway, and then onto the green. It's 440 yards. I think it will be the best hole. To me it's like the 8th at Pebble Beach, which is the best hole in golf. Except here you're hitting over the ocean with your tee shot instead of your second shot."

So we're settled on that: No. 10 it is É but wait!

What about the very first hole, which isn't just grand but grandiose, like the first notes of Beethoven's Fifth? Doesn't Trump love a big entrance? Of course, which is why he decided to gut the original opener and get right in the golfer's face with  an uphill par 4 running away from the Pacific, toward a double-decker waterfall.

Trump climbed to the hole's back tee and looked toward the world's biggest water feature, then back at the fledgling fairway. "Let's make this tee a little bigger," he told Van der Goes in that spur-of-the-moment, snap-my-fingers-and-it's-done tone of every big boss in history. "Give people plenty of room." Then, just as quickly, he was back to Regular Guy Trump tone, as if he were showing off a new car to his buddies.

"Before, we had a hole that was 375 yards -- a nice hole, but too easy," he says. "When they built it, they didn't have the land to put the tees back. So we put in 50,000 yards of earth just to create this tee. The hole will be 420 yards, with a waterfall in front of and behind the green. It'll be a hole everybody in California -- in the world -- will talk about. When it's done, you'll see 5,000 gallons of water pouring off that hill."

Trump repeats the theme in even more spectacular fashion on No. 17, a 240-yard par 3 over water to another Disneyesque green complex. Here he defers to Stellio's praise.

"You'll have a whole wall of water that spills down," the construction honcho says. "The cart path will go over a bridge, and it's pretty unique because you'll drive under the water. The water will go into a lower lake, and then into a creek that gives the illusion that it spills into the ocean."

Did he say illusion? Uh, yeah. That's the whole point with all of Trump's courses, isn't it? Just as the boardroom on last year's Apprentice finale transmogrified in an eyeblink into a studio set complete with audience, Trump National Los Angeles sets out to -- dare we say it? -- trump the competition, and will succeed with seeming ease. The man does illusion so well that it just seems right. We take it for what it is, accept it the minute we cross the threshold into his universe. And the fact that he employs a design magician like Fazio -- the guy who turned desert wasteland into Las Vegas wonderland Shadow Creek -- to complete the illusion only deepens its power.

Maybe that's the real way to choose a signature hole at a Trump course -- by not choosing one at all. You get the feeling he would rather we consider them all the best -- in L.A., Florida, wherever.

"I just want to have the four best courses," he says. "I don't want any more than that. The big difference with this one is the two miles on the Pacific Ocean. That's very tough to beat."

THE ART OF THE FEEL

I can't make you love golf, but, believe me, once you've had the opportunity to play on a beautiful course, it could turn you into an enormous fan, or even a passionate player, no matter how poorly you hit the ball.

--How to Get Rich, Page 48

"I'll never forget the first time I took him out on the golf course," Van der Goes says of his first on-site tour with Trump. "I brought up a cart; he kind of looked at me and said, ÔNope É I want to smell, feel and touch.' He always walks the course, comes out every few weeks to see how we're progressing."

It would be easy for Trump to let his money do the talking and leave the details to Fazio and Co. But this man is not built that way. He's in on every decision, from what water pumps to purchase ("most places don't do waterfalls because they're too expensive") to the choice of Northern California crushed granite for the bunkers. He cares about every nuance of each of his golf courses and sees them, for the most part, from an average player's perspective, not just a pro's -- though, by his own admission,  he'd love for Trump National to host a Presidents Cup or perhaps an LPGA version of the AT&T someday.

"He'll stand on the tee box," Van der Goes says, "look at me and say, ÔHow do you play this hole? Where's the trouble? What don't you want to do?' Or, ÔOK, this is the trouble -- you've got bunkers there, you can't see them É let's change that, bring the fairway up, flash the bunkers. And all of a sudden, you can see exactly where you're supposed to go. Then we'll move to the landing area, and so forth.

"That's the beauty of Mr. Trump being a golfer. He understands how to play the game, what people are looking for É for instance, how to make the course longer without just making it 7,500 yards."

So there's Trump the builder coming through on the bentgrass battlefield. But his caring goes beyond that. He's as passionate about the game as anyone.

 "I love golf. It's a very, very tricky thing to play golf and play it well, as is life tricky. But you can get to know people better on a golf course than you ever can any other way that I've found. You learn about people by the way they play.

"I enjoy playing golf as much as anything, but I also love building courses, moving earth. Somehow it's a great form of art to me.

"I love to get the best sites; the Bedminster piece is one of the richest pieces of land in the world, they say. It's probably the wealthiest place in the United States, right next to the USGA. But there's something beautiful about shaping earth. To me it's very powerful. I have a lot to say about it. I'm a fairly decent golfer and I understand golf very well."

SWIMMING POOL MELTDOWN

At the end of the day, though, Trump is a businessman.  When his love for the game dovetails with his bottom line sense, his diatribes on The Apprentice look like a Sunday sermon. That's exactly what happened as he walked up to a large lake under construction next to the new No. 9 green.

"This is the biggest swimming pool ever built," he began, "It had to be tested by 15 different agencies; they didn't want water seeping into the land again. But now it doesn't matter because now we're standing on a building. "

Pause.

To Van der Goes: "Why is this all dirt? Is this supposed to be planting or something?"

Van der Goes: "Correct. Marshplant."

Trump: "Don't we want to have it all lake?"

Another pause, and a few steps closer to the water.

To Joe, construction manager: "Is this area the same as that area? Is this not gonna show water?"

Van der Goes: "Plants, but not much."

Trump: "I'd rather have it f***in' water. I spent all that money and they want to put plants on it. I don't get it. The marsh is fine, but I'd rather have it be a lake. Is this concrete under here?"

Van der Goes: "It's seven layers of geofabric. And every single layer we have to test for holes."

Trump: "It's out of control. That's why people can't build golf courses anymore. If I wanted plants in there, I wouldn't have to spend $4 million on a swimming pool. It's half lake, half environmental horses**t."

Over the next half-hour, he reminded both Van der Goes and Stellio to "make sure that's a lake instead of a marsh." When the final product opens, expect to see nothing but water, all the way to the edge.

FINAL DETAILS, FUTURE DREAMS

Things settled down after that. Trump strolled down the newly sodded fairway on No. 12, a stellar par 5 of 550 yards and gazed up the hill and across Pacific Coast Highway, where homes date to the 1950s.

"Look at the houses up on the hill. Because of what I'm doing, people are buying up two or three of them at a time, ripping them down and building huge homes. There's a big one going in across the street from the entrance, and I love that, because it sets a tone."

And what will greet golfers who turn into his establishment opposite that house? Another waterfall, of course. Now that's setting a tone. And after they drive down to the clubhouse,  the tone turns into a symphony.

"It's going to be even better," Van der Goes said last spring. "Where we have the casual dining room, CafZ Pacific, that will move to where the high-end Peninsula Grill is now, and we're adding a much larger patio. The Peninsula Grill will move upstairs, with glass affording a panoramic ocean view."

That restaurant recently received the Golden Bacchus Award (for its wine list) and Golden Scepter (Best New Restaurant Award) from the California Restaurant Writers Association.

"That put us in league with Wolfgang Puck and Spago,"

Van der Goes says. "The chef does a phenomenal job of presentation and quality of food; now we're going to have a better restaurant atmosphere as well."

Already complete is a huge events center (to be augmented with an outdoor, park-lined area behind No. 18 that's perfect for weddings and, of course, tournament hospitality tents), and Trump is addi, ng close to 9,800 square feet for a day spa.

As for housing on his property, the original plan was to build 40 or so "mansions" on the northern part of the 600-acre parcel. Instead, Trump is building a full practice area (Ocean Trails never had one), with high-end casitas along one side, and perhaps a giant home or two. All will have a view of the Pacific -- as will every hole on the course, though fairways are wider now, with grassy ridges lining them to accommodate future galleries at whatever event Trump corrals.

"He's been approached by the Tiger Woods Foundation to bring their tournament out here from Sherwood Country Club," Van der Goes says. "He's been approached by the Wendy's Three-Tour Challenge, all the mini-tours, by the Champions Tour. He's been approached by the Michael Douglas celebrity tournament, which we held here for a couple of years [most recently it's been at Cascata in Boulder City, Nev.]. It went away once the bank took over, but it will come back because I know the relationship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Douglas is very good."

The Donald and Gordon Gekko: A match made in Hollywood. Can the same be said of Trump National and Los Angeles? Absolutely.

Who else could turn a ho-hum California landslide into the most anticipated West Coast golf course opening since God knows when?

Who else could turn collapsed dirt into certain gold, at two to three hundred bucks per patron?

Who else would even attempt such a rescue, and take on mighty Pebble in the process?

"This was 15 years in the planning process," Trump says, looking out over the amazing 18th. Before the original course opened they had a big problem -- but if it hadn't happened, I wouldn't own it."

And we wouldn't be lining up for it, would we?

For more information on Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles, call (310) 303-3240. And watch future issues of Fairways & Greens for a full review of the course once the renovation is complete.