Woods helps project stay out of the rough.

• Position: Western

Even with golfer Tiger Woods involved, selling high-dollar real estate might seem like a long shot these days. With many potential buyers' finances in the rough, The Cliffs at High Carolina wants $500,000 to $3 million for a chance to play regularly on the golf course he's designing. But many have. Executives of the development east of Asheville say the Woods connection could explain why, a month after its formal opening in November, they had sold 42 of 67 developed lots not long after a similar mountain project--Laurelmor (cover story, August)--had shut down.

The Cliffs lots fetched more than $40 million. Buyers have come from California, Virginia, Texas, Georgia, the Carolinas and elsewhere. "If Tiger Woods is going to put his first golf course in America here, buyers knew he'd already done some homework," says Scott Beville, executive vice president of The Cliffs Communities Inc., based in Travelers Rest, S.C. "They don't have to trust us because we say it's going to be nice."

The 3,200-acre development in Buncombe County will have about 1,000 lots when finished in four to five years. The golf course will be done in late 2010. But Beville concedes...