Cliffs owner explains why he hired Tiger

        Cliffs Communities developer Jim Anthony is trying to persuade his property owners that they should help him finance the Tiger Woods golf course and other amenities at High Carolina, the latest in his string of communities.  In two years, The Cliffs

has sold just 30 properties at High Carolina, even with heavy use of the Woods brand.  Anthony is asking his owners to provide between $60 million and $100 million; that money would also help complete some facilities at Mountain Park, where Gary Player is designing a golf course put on hold because of environmental concerns.

        Recent public comments by Mr. Anthony are not going to make his fundraising job any easier.

        “We hired Tiger for his expertise, not his endorsement,” Anthony told GSA Business, a Greenville, SC, area publication.

        Any observer with a modicum of common sense knows that Tiger was hired precisely for his endorsement power, not his design ability, which is totally unproven.  Consider that:

        1) No one has played a Tiger Woods designed course yet; all three have been held up for a grab bag of financial and environmental reasons.

        2) Unlike Jack Nicklaus and other current and former players turned golf architect, Woods has not apprenticed with a professional golf designer.  And…

        3) The Cliffs’ web site features a video of Woods and Anthony talking as much about the community as they do the golf course.  Woods talks about looking forward to bringing his family to High Carolina.

        One Cliffs owner told me that since he is not a golfer, Anthony may have an untutored notion of “expertise” in golf design.  He may think that a great player is, by definition, a great designer.  But he hired the highly experienced Jack Nicklaus and Tom Fazio for their designs at other Cliffs Communities and paid them millions of dollars less than the $20 million he reportedly paid Woods.  (Nicklaus and Fazio typically charge $2 million in design fees.)

        Cliffs property owners are praising Anthony for “opening up the books” in order to persuade them that the bond he is floating -– at 12% annually for seven years –- is not good money after bad.  The Anthony/Woods agreement may prevent public disclosure of the fee and related details, but before Cliffs residents entrust $100,000 or more each to their developer, they need to ask some very hard questions about why High Carolina must be finished now, and why a post-scandal Woods will help sell more properties than the pre-scandal phenom did.