Donald Trump's billion-dollar Scottish golf course may be on hold, so he has turned his rapacious attentions to Ireland and the remains of the Mountpather House. The 170-acre estate once boasted one of the finest country houses in Ireland but now the 18th century country house has fallen into disrepair. The elegant facade remains but the home's roof was removed over 30 years ago so the owners could avoid paying tax rates on the property. The fireplaces and interior fittings have either been removed or have collapsed leaving a crumbling shell of a home.

Mountpather House is just one of several properties that Donald Trump's representatives have looked at while scoping out the right spot for Trump's Irish golf course development. The estate is located in an area with other esteemed golf courses and is located around 40 minutes drive away from Belfast and two hours from Dublin. The property is listed at £8 million (around $15.62 million). I'm almost hoping Trump snaps this one up but only if he restores the old house rather than razing it.

[Thanks, Lana]

It's a bad week for Donald Trump, a Scottish council has rejected a plan from the Trumpster to build a $1 billion golf course and resort complex in idyllic seaside area north of Aberdeen. Trump's losing out to the birds, rare birds which make their home in the sandy dunes of the coastal area. Opponents of the development said that the development would damage the habitat of the Lapwings, Redshanks and Skylarks. Proponents of the plans said that the new development would be a big boost to the local economy. The Aberdeenshire Council's Infrastructure Committee battled for hours over Trump's plans before finally rejecting them. This news was particularly shocking to Trump since the council's Formartine area committee approved the golf course in a 7-4 vote last week. This latest vote (pardon the pun) trumps the first one. It is not known yet whether Trump will appeal the vote or if he will simply move on to create his golfing dream in another European country. The project was to have two 18-hole courses, a 450-bedroom hotel, 950 vacation homes, 36 golf villas and 500 larger homes.

All golfers dream of playing on the best courses around the world, but only a few actually get to experience it. Although "the best" is a subjective term when it comes to golf courses (you'll get slightly different results looking at different lists), there's one thing that comes straight down to numbers: price. How much do you currently pay for a round of golf? $500? Probably not, unless you play regularly at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas, NV, the most expensive golf course in the world. Pebble Beach Golf Links in Pebble Beach, CA ($475) and Old Head Golf Links in Kinsale, Ireland ($400) round out the top three on the list of the world's most expensive golf courses. What do you think? Are they worth it?

Today's estate has us once again checking out the real estate boom in Mexico. This home is part of the El Encanto En Punta Mita resort development in Mexico, an 18-acre gated enclave located in an area along the Pacific Ocean and the Bay of Banderas just west of Puerto Vallerta. The El Encanto En Punta Mita resort is home to a Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course, a beach club, and luxury services and amenities. This two-story, four-bedroom home has a plunge pool, marble flooring, and sliding glass doors and high ceilings for an open feel. The price of the home also includes a furnishings package as well as membership in the Punta Mita beach club. The home is listed at $3.255 million. After the jump, the beauty near the beach.

Tiger Woods is clearly ready to move on to the second part of his golf career, the mogul part. Fast on the heels of the announcement of his new partnership with Ernie Els in the Bahamas, Tiger has announced that the first-ever Tiger-designed course will be the "Tiger Woods-Dubai." Tiger's company, Tiger Woods Design, is joining up with Tatweer, a member of Dubai Holding, to create an exclusive golf community that will include "Al Ruwaya, a Tiger Woods-designed Golf Course, golf academy; a 60,000-square-foot clubhouse; an 80-suite boutique hotel for VIP guests; 300 luxury villas; 20 mansions and a community retail area. The course itself will be a par 72 designed to challenge all levels of golfers. In the press release Tiger is quoted as saying that he is "excited about the challenge of transforming a desert terrain into a world-class golf course." The community should be completed in 2009 and will be located in the massive Dubailand project.

Golf and cigars go together like beer and football and with increasing smoking regulations indoors, the golf course may be the last bastion of the public smoker. This led Tabacalera Perdomo to introduce the new Perdomo Golf line. The new cigar line comes in eight sizes from a petit corona to the types of larger cigars that may take half a round of golf to finish. The cigars have a Connecticut shade wrapper and all the tobacco is grown in Nicaragua. The cigars retail from $4.50 to $10 and a golf pack called The Caddy which has four tubed Perdomo Golf cigars, four customized golf balls and a cigar cutter is also available.

[via Cigar Aficionado]

A new resort being planned for North Carolina will be bigger than two small towns combined. The 6,000-acre development known as Laurelmor will be a luxury home community of around 1,500 homes, 1,000 condo units or hotel rooms, two golf courses, a spa, water park, equestrian center and a network of new roads where there is now just timberland. Environmentalists have some concerns about the massive development's effect on the local watershed. The project is the latest from Ginn Clubs and Resorts which has created developments in Florida and in the Caribbean (an example is shown here). Lots will start to be sold in October and the resort will open in the third quarter of 2009. The minimum lot price is said to be $750,000 and the smallest houses in the development will be around 3,000 square feet.