The award-winning Sagebrush Golf and Sporting Club, located on the shores of Nicola Lake at Quilchena is about to be purchased by Newmark Properties, a Langley-based residential development company.

The pending new owners have pledged to open the previously private course to more public play, and to inject a considerable amount of capital into the facility in order to make it more desirable as a destination resort.

“I have been familiar with Sagebrush since before the grass was even grown, and I played it before it opened,” said Mat Munro, Newmark’s director of sales and marketing, in a Jan. 29 article by the Vancouver Sun’s Brad Ziemer.

“I knew how special the golf course was. The opportunity came up [to purchase it], and here we are.”

While this is New-mark Properties’ first foray into golf course ownership, Munro said the company is more than up for the challenge.

“I have previous experience in the golf industry, and we’re bringing in some key people with experience,” he said.

According to Munro, the biggest task for the new ownership is to move Sagebrush from a private to a semi-private model with generous opportunities for the general public to play the unique course.

“We’re still going to offer corporate and individual memberships,” said Munro, “but we are also going to be open to public play. We would love to have people just come in and play 18 holes.

“We’ll probably be up around $149 shoulder season to $199 peak time,” said Munro in reference to projected greens fees for the upcoming season.

“We’ll probably be the highest in B.C., but we won’t be far off [other rates]. And I think that we’ll add a lot of value to those rates as we build our amenities.”

Munro said that Newmark definitely wants to promote the destination-resort aspect of the Sagebrush experience.

“Our biggest goal is to build a substantial clubhouse up there, where we can have amenities to offer our guests that want to stay on the property. We would like to start the clubhouse this year.”

The new Sagebrush owners have already teamed up with Sandpiper Golf Couse in Harrison Mills to offer a one-of-a-kind, three-day package that will include golf, sturgeon fishing, fly-fishing and helicopter transportation between the two courses.

“People come from all over the world to go sturgeon fishing [in B.C.] and to go fly-fishing at Douglas Lake Ranch,” said Munro. “We’re bringing those aspects into an experience that also includes playing golf at two very different, extremely beautiful golf courses.”

In 2013, Sagebrush played host to two notable events — the CJGA Sagebrush Junior Classic in late April and the Merritt Centennials Sagebrush Classic charity and fundraising event in August.

Munro said that the new owners have every intention of hosting both events again in 2014.

“We’ll have both events back this year,” he said. “We’ll do whatever it takes to be part of that again. And once we have our new clubhouse, it will allow us to host these events properly.

“My goal is to open up this little gem, and get a lot of people familiar with it,” said Munro.