An article in today’s New York Times by Ken Belson about The Cliffs Communities and Tiger Woods ends on a strangely ironic note.

        “I can’t find 12 percent guaranteed income in any other thing these

If the income is truly guaranteed, there should be no worries about "capitalist vultures."

days,” the article quotes Don Tucker, a resident at the Cliffs at Glassy who is on the finance advisory committee there.  He is referencing the loan rate Cliffs founder Jim Anthony is offering residents if they raise $60 million to help him finish the golf course Woods is designing, and other promised amenities. 

        Mr. Tucker goes on to say that, “It [the loan] also provides me with an insurance policy that I will not all of a sudden be placed in a position where the country club is managed by some capitalist vulture who washes out my equity.”  If residents don't come up with the $60 million in financing, Anthony has indicated he will have to seek the money from external sources, and at higher rates, with the prospect of losing his impressive roster of amenities to an investment bank in case of default.

        It strikes us that if the income is truly “guaranteed,” then worries about “capitalist vultures” are unwarranted.  But the greater faux pas is the reference to “12 percent guaranteed” which has become one of the most infamous numbers in the history of finance.  It was precisely the return Bernie Madoff guaranteed his clients.

        Each year in March, 32 college golf teams gather on the two golf courses at Paradise Point inside the gates of Camp LeJeune, the immense U.S. Marine base in Jacksonville, NC.  Pairs of collegians are matched with current and former Marines in an ersatz pro-am format for two days.  Then the college golfers are turned loose for a final round of competition on their own.  Methodist University repeated as champions this weekend.

        The golf seemed almost beside the point to this observer as I walked the two golf courses.  It was a kick to see the kids giving lessons and encouragement to the higher handicapper, older Marines who seemed grateful for the tips.  Thirty years of service, some of those in active combat, do not leave a lot of time to hone your short game.  Ron, the ex-Marine who played in my son’s group, still travels the world training younger Marines to defuse bombs and jam enemy electronic signals.  He knows he is not a good golfer, but his joy at playing with the kids was evident.

        Many of the kids take the opportunity to ask the Marines about their careers and travels.  For teenagers whose worldviews may be colored substantially by YouTube and Jersey Shore, it is an opportunity for a true reality show.

         Without getting too sappy about it, the collegians -- indeed, all of us -- are able to play golf because someone else is out there on the front line doing the tough work.  I was pleased that, on the 18th hole of the second day, when Ron and the college kids shook hands and said their goodbyes, my son Tim said to Ron, “Thank you for your service.” 

        Indeed.