Tiger Woods designing golf course on mountaintop overlooking Swannanoa

Excerpt from an article about Tiger Woods and the exclusive golf course and community being developed on the mountain ridge towering over Swannanoa and the Beacon Mill Village.

Woods the course designer plays salesman at Carolina project
By Jerry Potter, USA TODAY

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Tiger Woods was greeted by 1,000 people, who rode shuttle buses and drove cars to the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains on Saturday to visit the Cliffs at High Carolina, one of several golf course communities created by developer Jim Anthony.

Many were invited in hope that
they'd buy a home site on Woods' only course design — so far — in the USA.

But Woods' most persuasive comment came early in the presentation, when, without thinking, he looked at the crowd and said, "Y'all."
It drew a loud ovation.

"I do live in the South now," responded Woods, who has a home near Orlando.
Woods plans to have a home at High Carolina, which is 15 miles East of Asheville, in the community of Swannanoa about 4,000 feet above sea level. The course he's building is just in its early stages, and he said it might not be completed until 2011.

But that doesn't mean he's not working diligently on it while he's recovering from knee surgery that took him off the PGA Tour just after he won the U.S. Open in June.

Woods reiterated his intention to encourage players to walk the course, meaning there will be multiple tees so the course can play from 5,000 yards to 7,500 yards.
He also is determined to design the course so that players will have a chance to hit a variety of shots, but there won't be a lot of long forced carries.
Woods said he was able to walk about three months after surgery, and Anthony said his early visits to the site left him worried.
"He has probably put more steps on this ground at this stage of development than any architect we've dealt with," said Anthony, who has courses built by Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Fazio.
"He was up here climbing on boulders, and jumping from one boulder to another. I could just see the headline: Tiger reinjures knee on High Carolina rock pile."
Anthony said Woods once walked 22,000 steps through the property. And with that, he asked Woods to show the crowd the pedometer that was attached to his belt.