I have read "Dream Golf" and honestly it wasn't so impressive as to stick with me in any manner as to be one of those books that was real 'enlightement'. So, I can't just quote or discuss the intricacies of the Keiser approach to golf development without going back and re-reading some of the details. So I have a few fleeting, maybe inaccurate impressions:
But, isn't it correct that the self made multimillionaire, who made his real fortune from a great idea of recycled paper greeting cards and ran a business that he oversaw in strict detail to his personal beliefs and conservative nature, always maintaining his personal proximity to all the aspects of the company, in a very understated and modest personal space? Isn't the fundamental reason for Keiser's success, that he was very adverse to piling up debt as he proceeded in his expansions of his primary business, and even more importantly, he did not take on significant if any debt to enter the arena of golf course development, including "Lost Dunes" and then carrying that basic- low to no- debt philosophy to the Bandon project? Maybe I'm wrong or oversimplified it, but I think the enlightened part of Mr Keiser's approach may be modest steps in his expansion of his footprint. That he was a golf enthusiast first and had a rich person's dream of doing it "because he could" and had a personal operating principle of not 'overreaching' and doing things within his means and resources, is enlightening, it seems to me. I stand to be corrected.
But, in the bigger picture of all this free market and capitalist, subsidized wealth and crony capitalism discussion, I think to bring it within the realm of our golf development discussion, that the downfalls in all the so-called golf developers that don't make it, can be directly attributed to "overreach" and greed, in the manifestation of ridiculous over borrowing, using the so-called "other people's money" mentality. Those overreachers are the big borrowers and have the cavalier mentality of using 'other people's money' with the irresponsible fall back of contigency that if their overreach doesn't work, other people get hurt, (lenders, investors, and shareholders) and the greedy principals of the scheme just declare bankruptcy, reinvent themselves and move on to whom ever they can use again, in a crony capitalist, influence peddling clearing of obstacles and over hyped marketting sort of way.
Keiser seems to me to be the true conservative in the best business practices sort of way.