Portfolio.com catches up with Tiger Woods in Asheville

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Portfolio.com notes that the we’re currently experiencing the worst golf market in decades, then catches up with Tiger Woods at the site of what will be his first ever U.S. golf course, outside of Asheville in Swannanoa. This story asks: Can Tiger Woods survive a stumbling economy?

Tiger Woods, dressed for a crisp autumn day, walks confidently down an uneven slope among trees ablaze with fall colors at their peak. High in the Blue Ridge Mountains outside Asheville, North Carolina, he stops at a white pole that marks the site of what will be the 18th green of his first golf course in the United States. Earlier, a helicopter whisked him from his private plane to this isolated mountaintop, where he is about to shovel some ceremonial dirt. The course itself won’t open for at least two years—probably a good thing given the dismal state of the economy, which has led to the worst golf market in decades. 

Yet Woods is all smiles in front of a select crowd. He faces a clutch of photographers, public relations people, and developers, as well as a select group of buyers who would later admit that this moment, this chance to spend time with Woods, was what lured them into the deal in the first place.