Donald Trump and golf is more than a game. It is a passion." In 1999, Trump opened his first golf course: the Trump International Golf Club, West Palm Beach in Florida. Land for the US$45 million course was acquired through a lawsuit against Palm Beach County, Florida after Trump's purchase of the Mar-a-Lago resort. By 2007, Trump owned 4 courses around the US. Following the financial crisis of 2007–2008, Trump began purchasing existing golf courses and re-designing them. Golf courses owned by Trump hosted the LPGA Tour finale from 2001 to 2008, as well as the 2009 US Junior Amateur and US Junior Girls
Desert Forest Golf Club and myriad other varieties of cactus to the javelinas, coyotes, roadrunners and rattlesnakes that call the desert home." "Golfweek" has consistently ranked Desert Forest among the 50 best golf courses in the United States. Then in 2009 "Golf Magazine" ranked Desert Forest as the 35th best in the world on its list of the "50 Greatest Courses of the Last 50 Years", making it the only course in the state of Arizona to make that list. Author Jeff Barr named Desert Forest's holes number 7, 13, and 16 as among the most important holes in golf in his book "1001