The Markers Club
The destination club model is largely built around the country club model where members pay a refundable membership deposit and annual dues to access a club's golf course and clubhouse. The destination club concept replaces the golf course and clubhouse with luxury vacation homes around the world. The Markers Club focused their club on blending the concepts even further and catered their offering for people who want the golf experience, but at dozens of the world's finest courses.
Founded in April of 2005 by Mitch Brinton, Ron Wade, and PGA Champions Tour Professional Bruce Summerhays, the club offered three different membership plans, all of which provided members complimentary, VIP custom club fittings, new club demos, reduced green fees, VIP private lessons, and PGA event passes.
As a niche club, other clubs within the industry valued at roughly the same price point saw record growth, including Ultimate Escapes, Exclusive Resorts, and Quintess, while The Markers Club enjoyed only moderate success. To expand the travel benefits available to members, The Markers Club and leading equity destination club BelleHavens entered into a home sharing agreement. Markers members now could enjoy select beach and ski destinations within the BelleHavens portfolio while still golfing within The Markers Club collection.
In March of 2009, The Markers Club radically altered their club model, going so far as calling it the "relaunch" of The Markers Club. Now under the leadership of Michael Broussard, the former Vice President of Member Services who had been with the club since inception, The Markers Club made the initial steps to become a publicly owned company, investing in distressed real estate. The club also would no longer charge a membership deposit to join but rather sell year to year memberships.
"We will offer the public a way to invest in the real estate side of our company," said Broussard. "The goal of our public company is to take advantage of current economic conditions and purchase class A residences, hopefully at 30 to 50 cents on the dollar. According to every economic report you read, the opportunity is there now and is getting better for our current purchasing prices. We are excited for what our company is capable of."
Along with the club's new membership structure came a newfound dedication to provide experiences outside the golf world. The club introduced The Markers Tennis Academy and a plan to continue their golf-centric mentality, but to add more non-golf themed properties to the collection. "We are focusing now on the full lifestyle. Golf is still a huge priority for us, but in addition to golf, we are offering tennis academies and will be a full service destination club focusing on the family lifestyle. We are developing multi-site destinations that will cater more towards families so that we can accomodate more people throughout the year."
To learn more about The Markers Club, please visit the club's quick links found to the right or request a free copy of our Destination Club Guide.
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