Tiger Woods presents his plans for an Ultra-luxury golf development in Mexico

If you had said to me last week, “I am planning a new residential golf course development,” I would probably have laughed and suggested that it was poor timing on your part.

With golf course developments around the world struggling for memberships and some pretty high-end developments being canceled, it is probably not the best time to start a new one.

Unless (and this is a big unless) - It is being designed by Tiger Woods, will limit availability to only 40 homes and 80 condos; is within a short drive of San Diego and the entire course will be oceanfront.

Tiger Woods announced his involvement in a new venture this month – Punta Brava in Mexico, just 65 miles from San Diego. I imagine long and hard sessions went into deciding just how many people were likely to be able to afford the $3 million, one-acre plots, and this particular development is most likely immune to the current financial disaster. This may now be the most expensive real estate in Mexico. These are a few photographs of the environment, pre-development.

Mr. Woods is involved in two other developments at the moment, both of which are still in the construction phase. The Tiger Woods Dubai will eventually feature some staggering obstacles such as waterfalls and dramatic elevation changes, and thousands of trees and shrubs are being transplanted out in the Dubai desert. The other course is on The Cliffs in North Carolina.

Video Courtesy - Fairway Properties

The story is a little different further down the food chain, and several up-market developments have either been delayed or put up for sale recently. The 300-acre Beechtree course in Maryland closes it’s doors at the end of the year, a mid-luxury fractional ownership development on the edge of St. Andrews in Scotland was canceled recently, and the St Andrews Beach Golf Club in Melbourne, Australia is closed and currently up for sale along with a sister course The Golf Club at Kennedy Bay.

Although, according to the previous owners – the weather was to blame. What I hear is there was a drought on a third course near Phillip Island which caused the other two to fail also. Nothing to do with over-building. I guess that is a little better than the Spanish property developer that is suing Greenpeace for scaring the Spanish property market into a collapse when they produced a photo-book showing the likely effects of global warming on the Spanish coastline.

Punta Brava