The Cliffs Communities, under the official name Cliffs Club and Hospitality Group, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier today in Greenville, SC, its headquarters city. The filing is the latest event in a tumultuous couple of years at the upscale group of communities in the hills of the Carolinas that were founded by former telephone lineman Jim Anthony. Anthony’s rags to riches to bankruptcy story will serve for a long time as a cautionary tale for others considering a dip into the wild world of upscale golf community development.

        The Cliffs empire has been built on a vision of upscale amenities, and lots of them. Six golf courses, an equestrian center, multiple wellness and fitness centers, nature trails, a mountaintop chapel, $1 million properties

on lakes and mountains, and even lodges in Patagonia and British Columbia…few expenses were spared in selling The Cliffs lifestyle -- including an annual advertising budget of $14 million during the high-flying years. The model depended entirely on an ever-increasing housing market and the continuing explosion of new wealth in formerly booming cities like Atlanta, just a few hours from the Cliffs’ gates.  When the boom went bust, so too did the execution of Anthony's vision.

        The specific story of The Cliffs includes a few elements some of us will recall from our readings of classic Greek tragedy; a hero blind, until it was too late, to the roiling external influences on his kingdom, as well as to his own flaws. Former Cliffs employees have told me that Anthony, whose residents spoke of him in almost divine terms during the good times, often disdained the advice of his senior staff, and then “openly criticized and belittled them” in front of others. But fate, as well as over-weaning pride, also worked against The Cliffs founder, in the form of a collapsing economy and a young golf star who was supposed to make his mark in the world of golf course design courtesy of Jim Anthony.

        To those of us -– and to some Cliffs residents -- who thought six golf courses, up to one hour’s drive from each other, were more than enough, the hiring of Tiger Woods to build a mountaintop golf course at High Carolina was a head scratcher, an unnecessary if daring attempt to take The Cliffs from its dominating position in the upscale golf community market

to somewhere over the top. To help justify a $150,000 club membership and sell $1 million plots of land at High Carolina, but also, perhaps, out of vanity, Anthony reportedly paid Woods a design fee in the $10 million to $20 million range, five to 10 times more than Jack Nicklaus is paid on his best day. Within days of erecting billboards around Asheville with giant renderings of Tiger Woods touting High Carolina, the star ran his car into a tree in a Florida golf community.  We know the rest of that story.  Now those of us who care about how The Cliffs story unfolds will wait for the bankruptcy court and trustee to sort things out and decide if Cliffs property owners Steve and Penny Carlile will wind up with the amenities.  What happens with the unsold real estate at The Cliffs may be a more complicated issue.

        When I first visited three of The Cliffs Communities in 2006 with a friend, we marveled at the array and lushness of the amenities. The housing market was roaring back then, and our guide at The Cliffs proudly pointed to a McMansion on the golf course, owned by an Atlanta family, and said: “It’s their third house. They plan to use it a few weeks each summer.”   Later, at dinner after our visit, I asked my friend, “How can that all be sustained?” “Beats me,” he responded.

        Hindsight is easy, especially when it involves someone else. But in retrospect, Anthony should have taken some of that $14 million in marketing money and hired a top-rank risk management expert -- and then taken his or her advice.

     Members of most golf clubs have a hole on their golf courses that they love to hate. For those of us at Pawleys Plantation in Pawleys Island, SC, it is the short par 3 13^th, with its tiny island green sticking out into the marsh, a brutal challenge even when the wind isn’t blowing (a mercilessly rare occurence).  Coming as it does in the middle of the back 9, it can be a score killer.  Some of our members refer to it as the “shortest par 5 in the Myrtle Beach area.”  A few take Jack Nicklaus’ name in vain. (He designed the golf course.)

        At the other end of the Grand Strand of Myrtle Beach, 90 miles away, members at Rivers Edge Golf Club should feel similarly about their true par 5, the 536-yard 9^th, where every one of the three shots on the hole is cringe worthy and where, no doubt, muttering may occasionally include the name “Palmer,” as in designer Arnold.

There is plenty of marsh to go around at Rivers Edge.  At the par 3 15th, a shot over the wet stuff is all the more difficult when the pin is set just over the false front of the green.

 

        The journey at #9 begins with a mostly blind tee shot, the fairway tucked over a hill, the wide marsh and Shallotte River along the entire left side, cart path and woods along the elevated right side. The top of a tall tree beyond the green provides something of an aiming line. The trick is to bust a drive over the middle of the hill while turning a blind eye to the marsh on the left (lest you overcompensate and push your shot toward the cart path and woods on the right).  A well-struck tee shot will clear the hill and bound a bit left and down the other side to a wide collection area near where the marsh and a stream cut across the fairway.  Now you face a do and/or die decision:  Do you go at the area near the green, a forced carry of about 200 yards over the marsh, or do you look off to the right, away from the green, and play 160 yards or so over the marsh, just inside the 150-yard marker?  These are the only choices you have, and both seem bad.  (See the series of photos at bottom of the article.)

        The approach shot from 150 yards is a knee knocker, maybe the most intimidating approach shot on the Grand Strand.  That narrow green, surrounded by marsh, now runs directly front to back from this angle, and the marsh winds are apt to blow hard enough to force a shot out over the marsh.  As I stood up to the shot and tried to channel a punch shot, I regretted not having tried to fly the marsh and go for the bunker short and right of the green.  If you do decide to go for it, you face that impossibly narrow green 200+ yards away, running perpendicular to your line, just 40 feet deep, giving you almost zero chance of keeping a well struck shot out of the marsh beyond; your only reasonable play is to the aforementioned sand bunker on the far side of the fairway, about 15 yards short of the green.  With a high lip at its rear and front, the bunker offers all sorts of potential for bad lies.  Still, a third shot out of a bunker near the green on a par 5 is not a bad option.

        Although #9 can ruin a round at the halfway mark, there are plenty of opportunities for disaster over the course of the entire Rivers Edge layout.  Marsh that cossets the Shallotte River extends as well to some of the inland holes, necessitating a number of forced carries; although the Rivers Edge women’s golf group plays an average of three times each week, designers Ed Seay and Arnold Palmer could not have been thinking about them when they laid out the golf course. Those who cannot bang the ball, say, 175 yards or farther in the air will be forced to bump shots less than 100 yards up to the marsh to have any chance of keeping their ball dry on their next shot.

        Nowhere at Rivers Edge is that more true than at the 9^th. If there is a more problematical par 5 on the east coast, please write to me about it (photos appreciated) and we will publish your thoughts here.

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Rivers Edge Golf Club, Shallotte, NC is a semi-private golf club, with memberships available to those who live in the surrounding community (read my objective review of the community by clicking here). Designers: Ed Seay and Arnold Palmer. Course yardages/ratings/and slope: Gold, 6,909/74.7/149; Black, 6,440/72.1/139; White, 6,033/70.0/126; Green, 5,295/67.1/117 (men), 72.3/138 (women); Blue, 4,692/68.2/119.

Photos from top:  The aiming line on the blind tee shot at the par 5 9th at Rivers Edge is just to the right of the tall tree in the distance, behind the green; a successful drive will wind up short of the marsh down the left side, offering the alternatives of a go at the bunker just short and right of the green, or the more conservative -- and shorter -- shot to mid fairway, about 140 yards from the green; big hitters who reach the greenside bunker in two will be faced with a tough shot downhill to the pin, the marsh almost immediately behind; as you look back from the green to the fairway, you might second guess your approach to the hole.