Tiger Woods, Designer in Limbo

Elin Woods may have walked out on her philandering hubby, but developers sitting on large tracts of high-priced property in Dubai, Mexico, and the United States continue to stand by their man.

It's because they have to, of course. Their bonds to Tiger Woods run deeper than a ring and a promise.

In Dubai, the crews hired to build the Al Ruwaya course at Tiger Woods Dubai departed months ago. Nonetheless, the CEO of Dubai Properties Group recently told Bloomberg that "the project is ongoing."

In Mexico, on the coast of Baja California, the Woods-designed golf course at Punta Brava was supposed to have broken ground a year ago. Nonetheless, a principal of the Flagship Group recently told the San Diego Union-Tribune that he still intends to build "one of the singular golf clubs in the world."

And in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, just 39 of 1,200 lots at Cliffs at High Carolina have reportedly been sold. Nonetheless, the community's principal told the Wall Street Journal that he's "as committed as ever to High Carolina and the Tiger Woods golf course."

Clearly, Woods still has plenty of friends, just as Charles Barkley said he did. More to the point, though, today he's neck-and-neck in a race with time and money. In scary economic times, how long can even deep-pocketed developers be expected to hold on?

Dubai Properties, Flagship Group, and Cliffs Communities have invested a lot in Woods, and right now, in the midst of the worst recession any of us are likely to see, they can't afford to squander the potential return on their investment. They need to blow some public-relations kisses and support the partnership, because if the Tiger Woods "brand" continues to be battered in the marketplace, their luxurious communities are sunk.

So they put on a brave face. They say all the right things. They stay the course.

But Tiger Woods is in sex rehab, which can't be good for house sales. And loyalty, as we all know, is a fungible commodity, especially for home builders who aren't selling houses.