Alison Rowat: Scotland to have first look at 'the reinvented Donald Trump' as he heads for Ayrshire

Read more: Donald Trump fires campaign manager Corey Lewandowski

No, what we will see on Friday, assuming our attention is not taken up by a Nigel Farage-style “Breaking point” queue of people from a Brexit-voting England trying to get into a Remain-voting Scotland, is a new, aiming to come across as improved, version of The Donald. The Donald Mark 2. The Donald Reinvented.

For a few weeks now, something has been stirring in the Trump camp. It had gone quiet, too quiet, after he reached the required number of delegates to secure the nomination at the party convention in Cleveland in July. From the beginning, the Trump campaign has been like a shark on a blood high - it had to keep moving, creating splashes and mayhems, lest it swam to a stop. If Mr Trump was not making headlines people might expect him to be off somewhere, quietly formulating policy, and that would never do.

This week we found out what had been going on in Team Trump. Ructions. On Monday, the one-time host of reality TV show The Apprentice turned to his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, and said: “You’re fired.” Now, you may remember Corey from an unfortunate incident in which he was accused of manhandling a reporter out of the way at a campaign rally. The case was eventually dropped, but Mr Trump had made it clear he would be standing by his aide no matter what. “I don’t discard people,” said the boss. “I stay with people.”

Not any more. Although Mr Lewandowski says he does not know why he suddenly has more time to spend at the gym, it has been reported he clashed with Mr Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, as well as campaign chairman and relative newcomer to the team, Paul Manafort. Whatever the cause, Mr Lewandowski is offski.

Clearly, Mr Trump does discard people if they no longer serve a purpose. After decades in business, indeed, Mr Trump would likely boast of having a ruthless streak a mile wide. This is the man who, as a boy, was told constantly by his daddy to be a “killer” (not literally, to quote David Brent, that wouldn’t work, but metaphorically). Winning is everything to him. Jimmy Connors tells a story in his autobiography, The Outsider, of a 1988 US Open match he was in where tickets could not be obtained for love nor money. “Even Donald Trump couldn’t get a ticket to sit in one of the boxes,” he writes. As a huge favour he was invited into the Connors box to see Jimbo play Agassi. “After the second set, it was pretty clear who was going to win,” said Connors. “Trump got up, left, and reappeared seconds later in Agassi’s box. I guess he knew where the cameras would be.”

Read more: 'Empty headed' Donald Trump good for politics, says Bryan Cranston

There is much more to the Trump woes than personality clashes. Another sign that all was not well came last weekend when an “emergency” request was emailed to supporters urging them to help raise $100,000 urgently for television ads. Such appeals are common in campaigns, but Mr Trump has always made a virtue out of paying his own way, of being above the grubbing around of other candidates. Now, with a run at the presidency coming with a hefty price tag (this election, it has been estimated, could see a total of $5 billion spent by both sides), digging into his own pocket seems less attractive, though he insists he will carry on doing so if the Republican party does not pony up as it usually would.

But the money is just a part of the problem. Linked to the money are the dire poll numbers. Reporters including the National Review's Dan McLaughlin and Philip Bump of the Washington Post have looked at where Mr Trump is in the polls compared to previous contenders, George W Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney, at the same point in the election cycle. After securing the nomination, his numbers fell like a piano off the top of Trump tower. “The margin by which he trails Hillary Clinton now mirrors McCain's deficit to Barack Obama in 2008,” writes Bump. And look how that turned out for the Republicans. He needs staff, he needs money, he needs, arguably, to stay at home and sort out his campaign, yet Scotland and Turnberry are calling. Should we be flattered?

It would be wrong, and daft, to begin writing off Mr Trump at this point. Many a talking head sits bolt upright at 3am remembering the time they confidently predicted there was not a snowball in Hades chance he would get anywhere near the nomination. Think of all those poor trees that gave their lives so that acres upon acres of “Why America is heading for another Bush in the White House” could be written. Mr Trump has defied political gravity thus far, spending less, and gaining more ground, than anyone thought possible. This is the point, however, at which campaigns go big or go home. Hillary Clinton has had her own campaign troubles in the past. At one point in her 2008 run against Mr Obama for the nomination the squabbling and feuding made Game of Thrones look like Peppa Pig. She knows better now, it is assumed, how to run a happier, tighter, ship. The question is does Trump. There is no greater management challenge than being president of the US. But there is also no guide on how to do it, just plenty of examples of what not to do. All a candidate can do is surround himself or herself with the wisest counsel they can find and adapt accordingly.

What one has to wonder about Mr Trump is whether he is willing or able to listen to such counsel, even if he can find them. Given the best of starts in life by daddy, the boss has never had to be an underling. Can he take advice from anyone outside his family? Or is he simply, as one suspects, making all this up as he goes along, from policy to staff management?

Read more: Donald Trump urges Republican support amid fundraising woes

Scotland will this week do The Donald a favour. It will show him as the owner of a world-class golf course and a swish hotel. It will show him as a winner. But as a president in waiting? That is the huge task that still awaits him when he gets home.