Longtime golf pro Paul Eiserman leaves Pinnacle Country Club
by April 11, 2017 12:25 pm 1,818 views
The par-5 14th hole at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers.
Pinnacle Country Club, the private club in Rogers whose core clientele is the executive set, has had a shakeup in its management team.
Longtime golf professional Paul Eiserman left the club in mid-March. General manager Tim Johnson confirmed the departure but did not disclose the reason for the exit.
“Paul did a fantastic job for us while he was here, there’s no question,” Johnson said Tuesday (April 11). “We decided to go in a different direction. That’s really about all I can say about it. I wish him nothing but the best. He’s a good man.”
Eiserman was recruited in April 2003 from St. Albans Country Club in St. Louis to be Pinnacle’s head golf professional. He later assumed the title of director of golf.
“I’ve been in the golf business a long time and Pinnacle has been very good to my family,” Eiserman said. “But things change. I wish everybody there the best. I’ve got some good things happening, but I can’t really comment on what those are because they haven’t happened yet, so I am hoping those come to fruition.”
Rogers native D.J. Ransom, a fixture at the club for several years, was promoted to head golf professional in 2011, and will continue in that role. Johnson said the director of golf position has been eliminated.
Pinnacle currently has 418 golf memberships, said Johnson, who replaced Pat Hennessy as general manager in October 2015.
The club also hosts an annual stop on the LPGA Tour. The Walmart NW Arkansas Championship presented by P&G is scheduled this year the week of June 19-25.
Pinnacle was founded in 1990 as Champions Golf & Country Club. It endured a litany of early financial troubles tied to its initial developer, a promoter from Fredonia, Kan., named Fred Berckefeldt. The mismanagement was so shaky that Berckefeldt’s dealings strapped the development with an $18.5 million debt.
In 1992, a group of local developers — led by the late James T. “Red” Hudson — bought the club when it was on the verge of bankruptcy, and ran Berckefeldt out of town.
Hudson, founder and chairman of poultry giant Hudson Foods Inc. of Rogers, eventually bought Pinnacle outright in 2002. Hudson died of lung cancer in August 2006 at the age of 81, but his family still owns the club, with his son Mike Hudson serving as president.