Cliffs Developer Says $150 Million Already Spent On Tiger Project

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With a project completion date of 2013 now, according to Keith Jarrett and Mark Barrett (thanks reader George for the link):

The Cliffs' Asheville region director of sales, Mac Triplett, said Monday that 42 home sites have been sold in a development that features 1,000 to 1,200 lots. Sales officially opened in November 2008.

“That's not exactly correct,” said Anthony. “It's definitely true that all real estate sales are slow, but we brought in a construction group, and now the mass grading (of five holes and the driving range) are two-thirds complete.”

Mass grading. A real walk in the park!

Stick-A-Fork-In Tiger Clippings, Volume 1

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That didn't take long! One bad tournament and he's done!

Joe Posnanski on his Curiously Long Posts blog for SI pens a heartfelt, reasoned critique of Tiger from outside the ropes. The essence: are we in denial about the future of his game? It's a great read even if I think he's a bit premature. Though as he points out, when do we come to grips that things will never be the same?

But I think he is going to enter a new phase, where he will contend occasionally, like other golfers. He is going to enter a phase where it will be difficult to play well for four rounds. He is going to enter a phase where those 10-foot putts that were automatic will not be automatic anymore. I think things have changed for Tiger Woods, and they’re not going back. You can’t ever go back. And I don’t know how he is going to handle that. Nobody knows how he will handle it. Over the weekend, on one of his favorite courses, he looked lost. His swing was off. His short game was off. His putting was off. Yes, it was just his first tournament, but Tiger has always done really well in his first tournament — this was part of his game, he was always more ready to go when the seasons began than anyone else.

Anyway, what was as striking as anything was how uninterested he looked.

On that observation, Tiger's Sunday playing partner Brendan Steele would seem to agree, or so SI is saying they will report in this week's issue of Golf Plus.

"I don't think he gave it ­everything today," Steele told SI. "Once it started going in the wrong direction, I don’t think it had his full attention."

Meanwhile Steve Elling and John Huggan feast on Tiger in an entertaining Pond Scrum:

Elling: Blunt assessment time: I saw a guy who still can't string together four good rounds. He barely pieced together two good nines. Right now, Tiger Woods isn't one of the world's 40 best players. Last night in the San Diego airport, a bunch of scribes were actually discussing what would happen if he never made it back to anything close to his former levels at all. All of a sudden, it didn't sound like heresy.

Huggan: I'm perplexed. Tiger is supposed to have been (working) away since we last saw him at the Chevron and this is what he comes up with? He looked like Justin Leonard's idiot cousin. Can't drive. Can't chip. Can't putt. And let's not even get into his bunker play. Was he digging for buried treasure?

Elling: On Sunday, while he was carding his second-worst score on a course where he has won six of his last seven starts, I was trying to catalog his strengths during the week. Only thing he did above average was hit a few good long irons.

Huggan: Emphasis on a few. Most of the shots I saw were missing California, nevermind Torrey Pines.

Sally Jenkins offers a more diplomatic but essentially similar take:

It will be interesting to see if Woods, in his work with Foley, can really recover the swing of his own youth. Do yourself a favor and pull up some old footage of Woods, back when he was a collegiate player and U.S. Amateur champion. It’s a joy to watch. That kid, all elbows and knees, thwacked at the ball with such unconscious, unthinking pleasure. Now pull up modern footage, and you’ll be struck by the difference, how much stiffer he seems, how much he’s fighting his own body.

At this point, Woods’ swing looks over-taught, and over-thought. Through the years, Woods has gotten steadily more mechanical, as well as visibly stronger and more muscular. Woods’ perfectionism has been his greatest strength, but you have to wonder if all that seeking of improvement, his constant preoccupation with the technical, always serves him so well. Maybe the greatest player in the world overperfected his swing. It would be nice to see a more natural Woods.

Shock: Tiger's Dubai Project "Suspended"**

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Guess they had to get this out of the way so that he wouldn't have to pretend during his visit in a couple of weeks like things were progressing, even though we already knew from this Donegan report last November that this one wasn't happening.

Thanks to reader Peter for this Reuters story:

The developer, a unit of Dubahi Holding [DUBAHC.UL], had planned the resort with Woods, a former world number one, who was to have designed the golf course.

"Tiger Woods Dubai can confirm it has suspended the project," Dubai Properties said in a statement on Monday.

"This decision was based on current market conditions that do not support high-end luxury real estate. These conditions will continue to be monitored and a decision will be made in the future when to restart the project." The golf resort was slated to have 292 residential plots for palaces, mansions, luxury villas and golf villas, according to the development's website. It also includes an 18 hole golf course.

State Of Golf Index Rises On Reports Of Tiger Opening With A 69

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Steve Elling was among the majority who saw improvement in Tiger's game after an opening 3-under 69 at Torrey Pines North.

Even so, he looked more like the Woods who ended last year with a playoff loss at the Chevron World Challenge, not the guy who played so poorly for so much of the year that he didn't win on the PGA Tour for the first time in his career.

It felt like a typical season-opener for Woods, including his position on the leaderboard. In his last four trips to this PGA Tour event, he has trailed by seven, six, five and two shots after the opening round and went on to win them all.

69 is impressive considering that he essentially bogied the four par-5s by not parring one, as Sean Martin highlights in his five observations from the Farmers.

1.) Woods hit just 5 of 14 fairways on Thursday. Obviously, not a good performance off the tee. However, there’s a couple reasons that number is not as bad as it first seems.

The fairways on the North course are extremely narrow. We’re talking U.S. Open width. Also, Woods wasn’t hesitant to use driver on the narrow fairways. He pulled it out on Nos. 15 and 16 consecutive par-4s under 400 yards. He also nearly drove the par-4 second hole. His ball ended up in the rough, but it was in a good position, setting up an easy birdie.

Robert Lusetich was the round's lone dissenter, suggesting that if Tiger's goal "was to bury ghosts and quickly set a fresh tone for the new year," he "failed." Especially from 100 yards and in.

Although his long game has improved greatly under the tutelage of new coach Sean Foley, it’s noticeable just how uncertain and tentative Woods is from inside 100 yards.

Maybe that’s the last piece of the puzzle to fall into place — and maybe it’ll only come once Woods has real confidence in what he’s doing — but the harsh reality is that it’s hard to score on a course like the North without hitting wedges close to the hole.

Even though Woods missed only three greens — and made no bogeys — the truth is that he had very few realistic chances at birdies.

“I kept leaving himself above the hole,” he later bemoaned.