If Woods wants to keep his business partners happy, he will also have to help sell the high-end homes that surround his planned courses. Punta Brava is aiming to be ultra-exclusive, with an international clientele. The entry-level price for one of its 90 homes is expected to be $3.5 million; the most expensive site is $12 million. The golf club will have fewer than 400 members, including the 240 people who are expected to pony up $1.6 million for 90 days of fractional ownership in one of 60 villas. And if you don’t have your own plane, getting to Punta Brava will be tough.

For Woods, the most draining part of his new ventures may be knowing that their success or failure depends entirely on his image. Watching Woods at a marketing event for Punta Brava at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles, I remembered a story I’d heard about a network newscaster whose family jokes that they have to roll out the “show pony” whenever someone wants to meet him.

Woods is the show pony. No one at the Bel-Air would be especially interested in paying $12 million for a homesite in the middle of nowhere in Mexico on its own merits, but the chance to buy into a club associated with Woods is another matter. That’s why the developer of Punta Brava stresses that Woods will have a home there. The Cliffs’ developer touts the same claim. (Woods’ representatives say that details of those arrangements have yet to be worked out.)

“I introduced him to every single person at lunch,” Oman says. “Then he went into the press conference and did one-on-one interviews afterward. I had a V.I.P. reception in my suite at 6:30, and then he went into the reception at 7:15. I introduced him to every single person that night—250 people. It went past midnight. He stayed way past the end.”

Midway through that day, I watched Woods walking alone past the hotel’s outdoor bar. For a rare moment, the guests were too wrapped up in their own conversations to notice him. He looked lost in thought. His expression was somewhere between pained and distracted. In an instant, he collected himself. He smoothed his jacket, touched his temple, and kept moving.

At the end of the night, a Bentley Continental GT pulled up to the valet stand. As its owner climbed in, he called back to the attendant, “It’s not every day you get to meet Tiger Woods.”

Right now, several hundred million dollars is riding on whether that sentiment will translate into home sales.