BEDMINSTER, N.J. — When you talk through the fan village at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster for this week’s LIV Golf event, you see everything from various food trucks and golf activities to a merchandise tent and … a DeLorean time machine?
A car styled after the DeLorean DMC-12 made famous by the “Back to the Future” movie franchise might appear to be out of place, but it’s actually right at home. The DeLorean has a unique tie to the course that’s playing host to the Greg Norman-led and Saudi Arabia-funded series, seeing as the property used to be the home of the vehicle’s namesake.
Before he was President of the United States, Donald Trump bought the 500-plus acre former estate of automaker John Z. DeLorean in 2002, which at the time was a golf course construction project on the verge of collapse. Trump kept the same plans for the golf course and was purely the money man to lift the project back on its feet, paying $35 million for the property.
“Those people had a great vision but didn’t quite have the funding,” he said at the time.
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DeLorean and his former wife, model/actress Cristina Ferrare, bought the property in 1981, just as the former General Motors wunderkind was launching the manufacture of his distinctive stainless steel sports car with gull-wing doors.
As history now knows, the DeLorean Motor Company failed, and DeLorean was charged with cocaine trafficking in an attempt to raise money for his car company.
Although DeLorean was eventually acquitted, the ordeal cost him his marriage and his financial stability. For years before the bankruptcy, he battled with creditors to avoid foreclosure on the estate.
According to NJ.com, DeLorean’s mansion was renovated as the clubhouse, with the garage as the golf shop. There’s a helipad just off the 15th fairway, a pool, cottages for guests – not to mention Trump’s private residence – as well as a handful of goats for tax purposes.
The 36-hole golf club was designed by Tom Fazio and Tom Fazio II and opened in 2004. Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and Jared Kushner were married here in 2009. The property was approved in 2015 to also have a plot for a family cemetery, and Trump’s ex-wife, Ivana, reportedly was buried there after her recent death.
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