On Feb. 17 last year, the general manager of Spring Creek Ranch, a private golf retreat, was at his desk when a friend called to offer condolences.

"About what?" Robb Meyer recalls asking.

Federal agents had just raided Stanford Financial's offices at the Crescent Center, the friend explained, shutting down a massive Ponzi scheme that had bilked investors of billions of dollars.

"I was shocked. I think I was more shocked not so much because I had met and spent time with Jim Davis," he says of Stanford Financial's chief financial officer. "I was shocked he was involved in it. He fooled me."

Stanford Financial was placed under receivership; its top executives, including Davis and Texas financier R. Allen Stanford, faced criminal charges.

Four years earlier, Meyer and his father, who founded Spring Creek Ranch, had unwittingly struck a deal with the devil. They had sold Stanford Financial half-ownership in Spring Creek Ranch for $6.5 million and equity investments.

But on Friday, U.S. Dist. Judge David C. Godbey in Dallas approved the deal that ends the partnership. For just $3 million, the Meyers are paying the receivership's estate to regain full ownership of Spring Creek Ranch, and continue to benefit from the more than $30 million in improvements that Stanford sunk into the property.

"This cloud is finally going to be gone and blown away," Meyer says.

The club appears to be emerging from the fiasco, smelling like one of the fragrant flowers that dot its landscape.

"Once this deal is done and even before, we will have no debt," Meyer says.

But Meyer empathizes with Stanford investors who lost substantial sums in the fraud.

His own family was among them, he says.

'Done, done'

Memphis' best-known golf instructor, Rob Akins, and Meyer are hunched over a catalog in the bed of Akins' pickup. The two men are in a muddy, newly cleared area 400 yards downrange from the members' practice tee at Spring Creek Ranch, the swanky golf club north of Collierville. That's where Spring Creek Ranch is building for Akins a teaching facility befitting the Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course and the golf house by architect James Cutler, who designed Bill Gates' $100 million residence.

The board-and-batten building for lessons -- complete with climate-controlled hitting bays, high-speed cameras and radar that details the ball's flight -- will look like a hunting lodge. Akins points in the catalog to the type of stamped concrete he wants for the deck. It looks remarkably like planks of wood.

Meyer's father, opthalmologist Dr. David Meyer, founded Spring Creek Ranch, preserving the land's rolling beauty by turning it into a golf course instead of a subdivision. Robb Meyer runs the place. He looks a bit like a young John Travolta with a buzz cut.

Almost the instant Meyer absorbs that Akins seeks approval for the rustic-looking stamped concrete, Meyer asserts: "Done, done."

More facilities, access

Spring Creek Ranch is in a building mode this year. It's also erecting eight cabins for members and their businesses to use for retreats.

This also is the year the 11-year-old club will become more accessible, holding tournaments sanctioned by the Memphis Golf Association and Tennessee Golf Association that nonmembers can play in. One Monday this year its gate will fling open to let anyone play; all the green fees will be donated to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Despite the taint of being associated with Stanford, the club is adding members, Meyer says. Thanks in part to eliminating the initiation fee, Spring Creek has signed 108 new members since last March.

Receiver's motion

Stanford Financial receiver Ralph Janvey is still working to recover billions for investors who were scammed.

He studied Stanford's half-stake in Spring Creek Ranch, determined its annual, million-dollar deficits were a bad deal for investors and wants out. When Janvey couldn't entice any other bidders for the half-ownership, he recommended in January the court accept the Meyer family's offer to buy back the half-stake for $3 million. The court approved the motion Friday.

Janvey's motion pointed out that Stanford had sunk more than $30 million in equity investments and loans to improve club facilities. Janvey's motion painted a bleak picture of the golf club: Annual deficits of more than a million dollars for the foreseeable future; too remote to lure new members; no pool or tennis courts to attract families.

Meyer half-smiles when asked about it. The negative report is based on information the Meyers provided to strengthen their case in the negotiations with the receivers, he says. The worse conditions are, the less the Meyers should pay to buy back full ownership.

"So none of that really bothered me because it was stuff we gave them," he says.

Besides, the receivers' report makes no mention that Tenn. 385, the outer loop, is under construction nearby and will have two exits near Spring Creek Ranch.

As for no pools and tennis courts, those are not what Spring Creek is about. It's a golf club, not a country club. The emphasis is on natural beauty, and passively enjoying it in a retreat setting, Meyer says.

Big Ol' Texas

Robb Meyer met Texas financier R. Allen Stanford just once; they had lunch at Spring Creek Ranch. Stanford's presence filled the room. "He should have worn a T-shirt that just said, 'Texas. Big ol' Texas,' " Meyer says with a laugh.

But Memphis-based James M. "Jim" Davis was the one Meyer had a relationship with, the one who frequently came to Spring Creek Ranch, the one the Meyer family struck a deal with. Anyone with passion resonates with Meyer, and Davis seemed passionate about the partnership and about Memphis.

"Part of me now wants to think, can he fake that?" Meyer says. "I was just shocked he was involved with it. He fooled me."

No tournament

Until Feb. 17, 2009, Stanford Financial was just about a perfect partner.

Davis insisted Meyer keep running the club the same as he always had. Davis always said "yes" to funding improvements if Meyer thought they would make Spring Creek Ranch better.

Yes, Stanford Financial apparently had an ulterior motive: To eventually move the Memphis PGA Tour tournament Stanford sponsored from TPC Southwind to Spring Creek Ranch. Meyer says he not only was open-minded about the request, he traveled to other tournament venues to do research.

But he and his father concluded a yearly PGA Tour event was not a good fit for Spring Creek. Too disruptive. Not only would members not get to play the course for a couple of weeks, but the scaffolding, bleachers, tents and other tournament infrastructure would spoil Spring Creek Ranch's natural setting for several months.

While many assumed the tournament would move from Southwind to Spring Creek, "it was never coming here," Meyer says.

Club's relevance

Spring Creek Ranch, of course, is economically exclusive. Meyer declines to reveal what the monthly dues are.

Still, he contends the place is part of Memphis' fabric, like the Grizzlies and Redbirds. The community will take pride in Spring Creek when it eventually hosts important national tournaments.

The goal eventually is to be the venue for a PGA championship, one of four major competitions in men's golf. The club will build up to that by going after local, state and such national competitions as the PGA for seniors and women.

"We are not elitist," Meyer says. "We are not about who you are, what family you are from, what religion, gender or race. If you wanted to be a member here, those things don't matter."

Spring Creek Ranch can't replace the kind of money Stanford Financial generated for St. Jude, but it's going to partner with the research hospital to host several types of fundraising events.

As for his old partner, Meyer says he has neither heard from nor seen Jim Davis since the scandal broke.

Davis has pleaded guilty to three counts in the criminal case, is free on bond, awaiting sentencing, and cooperating with prosecutors.

-- Tom Bailey Jr.: 529-2388