Tiger Woods has long maintained a cloak of exclusivity, charging top dollar to top sponsors. The same is true for his golf course company, Tiger Woods Design, which since opening in 2006 has designed three courses, two outside the country: in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Ensenada, Mexico.
The third course, near Asheville, N.C., is perhaps the most ambitious. Woods was reportedly paid millions of dollars to design The Cliffs at High Carolina, a 7,300-yard course nearly 4,000 feet above sea level with 50-mile views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Around the course, there are plans for up to 1,200 homes, a spa and other amenities.
But like the work at so many real estate developments in the last few years, construction at the Cliffs has fallen behind schedule, hampered by weak sales. The course is now expected to open in the spring of 2012 instead of the fall of 2011. Fewer than 40 lots — at least one for $3 million — have been sold, and only a few homes have been built.
The developers plan to borrow up to $100 million from the residents at the Cliffs at High Carolina and seven other communities near the Cliffs to help finish the construction of various amenities.