Golf’s greats are at Augusta this week for the Masters. Sell My Timeshare NOW’s favorite golfer, Bobby Cole, tells us about playing there for the first time as an amateur.

Regular readers of the Sell My Timeshare NOW blog know that from time to time, PGA Tour veteran, Bobby Cole, tees it up in a tournament wearing the logo of Sell My Timeshare NOW.

Since this is the week of the Masters tournament, one of golf’s most historic and prestigious events, I asked Bobby about the times he played at Augusta. Bobby Cole’s first trip to Augusta was in 1967.

As the 1966 British Amateur champion, a tournament he won at Carnoustie, Scotland, he earned the right to play in the Masters the following spring.

If you or I were going to Augusta to take in this tournament, we would hopefully have scheduled a Georgia timeshare within convenient driving distance of the golf course. But for Cole, accommodations weren’t a concern. He would stay in the cupola section of the Augusta National Clubhouse, known as the Crow’s Nest.

The Crow’s Nest houses five players, and the privilege of staying there is offered only to the amateurs who are invited to play. In the past, the Masters tournament often included a dozen or more amateurs, but in recent years the number has been set at five. Each year the US Amateur winner and runner-up, the US Mid-Amateur winner, the US Public Links champion, and the British Amateur champion are invited to participate.

The room itself is large and simple. It is accessed only by a narrow stairway, and the five occupants must share a single bathroom. But the thrill of spending the week in the Crow’s Nest has little to do with décor or amenities. Instead, accommodations in the Crow’s Nest mean you have earned the right to bunk in the same quarters once shared by Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods. The windows afford some of the best views of the golf course, and every detail of the room reminds you that you are standing on golf’s hallowed ground.

Bobby Cole, like so many of the men who stayed in the Crow’s Nest before and after him, will tell you that a week there is unforgettable. For Cole, it was also historic. As an eighteen-year old amateur, he made the cut in the 1967 Masters, and for that accomplishment he holds a record that still stands today as the youngest player to make the cut and play the weekend in a Masters tournament.

You may never get to the Crow’s Nest. And you may never play Augusta National. But Georgia timeshares, from Tybee Island timeshares to Apple Mountain timeshares, offer great opportunities for sharing memorable vacation moments with your family and friends.

Unusual situation at timeshare resort means problems for timeshare owners.

The Legends Resort and Country Club in McAfee, NJ has had an interesting history to say the least. Originally built in 1972 by Hugh Hefner as a 600-room Playboy Hotel, Hefner sold the property in the late 1980’s. It seems that Hefner’s vision for the resort could not be realized when the gambling license he sought was not approved.

After Hef sold the property, the hotel faced one problematic ownership situation after another. When the current owners, Metairie Corporation, purchased the property, it was already in bankruptcy.

At first, the purchase seemed like it would bring better days. Metairie turned 28 suites into studios and one and two-bedroom timeshare units. They promised owners amenities including indoor and outdoor pools, a children’s pool, conference center, a health club, restaurant, and other enticing features. The timeshare units sold for prices between $8,000 and $18,000. Some 1600 people invested in the timeshare units, which means that the funds generated by their sale netted Metairie Corp. roughly $15 million.

Fifteen million should have gone a long way to building and maintaining promised amenities at any timeshare resort. But instead of The Legends improving with the influx of capital; it went downhill.

Over the years that followed, despite the fact that timeshare owners continued to pay their yearly maintenance fees, conditions at the resorts deteriorated. Not only were many of the promised improvements never made but routine maintenance was also neglected. Currently the outdoor pool, the gym, store, restaurant, and clubhouse are closed and the tennis courts have deteriorated significantly. Other complaints include mold problems, protruding nails, sinks falling off walls, and abandoned cars left in the parking lot.

Perhaps the final indignity came in August of 2005, when RCI, the largest timeshare exchange company in the world, dropped The Legends Resort from its exchange privileges. Since that time, other timeshare exchange companies have dropped them as well. The timeshare owners have now organized as a group called, Legends Owners United, and are trying to effect legal action. In March, New Jersey State Real Estate Regulators began investigating the situation. Until last year, in the state of New Jersey timeshare issues such as this one did not fall under the direction of the State Real Estate Regulators, which in New Jersey, is a division of the State Department of Banking and Insurance.

It goes without saying how much we all hope the members of Legends Owners United get satisfaction. Let me also add, first, that this type of problem is the exception, not the norm in timeshare resorts today, and that secondly, buying resale timeshare rather than buying timeshare units as new or pre-construction property, reduces your risk of getting caught in such circumstances. With resale timeshare, you are buying a proven product, and just as importantly, you are usually spending a lot less of your money to do so.

You can also look at the unfortunate situation at The Legends in a speculative way. This might be an ideal time to purchase a timeshare resale from a current Legends timeshare owner, in anticipation of a positive resolution for the resort and its possible future status.

Help for college students interested in hotel and timeshare careers.

Are you facing the high cost of sending a child to college? The Princeton Review breaks down the cost of one year of college tuition like this:

• $31,717 at a private university
• $11,918 at a public university.

And these numbers do not include lodging, meals, or other expenses that are part of the expense. So congratulations to so many forward-thinking companies in the hospitality, lodging, and vacation ownership industries that are committed to helping students earn higher educations. One of the noteworthy programs I wanted to share with you is that of the American Hotel & Lodging Education Foundation.

The American Hotel & Lodging Educational Foundation (AHLEF) that is the fund raising and fund management arm of the American Hotel & Lodging Association. For 2007, the programs AHLEF will administer include:

1. Arthur J. Packard Memorial Scholarship Competition
2. Ecolab Scholarship Competition
3. Hyatt Hotels Fund for Minority Lodging Management Students
4. Steve Hymans Extended Stay Scholarship
5. The Rama Scholarship for the American Dream
6. American Express Scholarship Competition
7. Annual Scholarship Grant Program
8. Lodging Management Program (LMP) Scholarship
9. Pepsi Scholarship
10. AAA Five Diamond Hospitality Scholarship

The application process for the AHLEF programs has been streamlined. For 2007, it is easier than ever for students who are interested in management, sales, marketing, administration, or food and banquet service at a hotel or timeshare vacation resort to complete the application process. The applications no longer need to be accompanied by tax forms and either official and unofficial transcripts are acceptable.

In 2006, the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Foundation awarded $430,000 to more than 300 hospitality management students.

If you, or your son or daughter, is interested in the great career opportunities available in the hotel and timeshare industries and want to learn more about the AHLEF scholarship program, you can contact:

There is an interesting link between timeshares and time pieces.

I wrote about Clocky in 2005 when it was just a prototype homework project for MIT graduate student, Gauri Nanda. Ms. Nanda, a native of Michigan, has—like many of us—struggled from time to time dragging herself out of bed in the mornings. As you would expect from a gifted MIT grad student, Gauri Nanda set out to solve her problem and get class credit at the same time. She may also wind up being a very successful designer and businessperson in the process.

When I first blogged about Clocky, it was just a simple clock-on-wheels, wrapped up in shag carpet. Today it is sleek, sophisticated, and well on its way to being a niche-market success story. The idea behind Clocky is, when the alarm sounds, you can either turn it off and get out of bed or you can hit the snooze button.

When you hit the snooze button, you may get to drift back to a few more minutes of slumber, but you have just given Clocky the challenge for which it was built. Press the snooze button and Clocky is programmed to immediately roll away from you; typically off your nightstand, onto the floor. Clocky will roll away from you in randomly programmed directions, forcing you to leave the comfort of your bed in order to turn off the ringing alarm.

Besides the fact that I admire the inventor for developing a product that is both genuinely useful and is actually fresh and unique—something that is hard to do these days—why does this nagging alarm clock deserve not one, but two mentions in our Sell My Timeshare NOW blog? Because as great as Clocky is from a design standpoint, Clocky is exactly the reason we need timeshare vacations. If you weren’t already tired enough each morning, the recent shift to Daylight Savings Time observed in most parts of the country was enough to remind us that we never really get enough rest and down time. Too many of us start our workdays exhausted from the day before. Too many of us work nights, weekends, and long, unappreciated hours of overtime. If we dare to think about taking a vacation, we don’t even feel as if we had time to plan it. But nothing makes vacation planning as simple and as streamlined as timeshares do.

Also, for a lot of people, taking an entire week of leisure is an impossibility. Not to worry, chances are, your timeshare company is ahead of you in solving that problem. Most interval timeshare can now be used in increments of 2, 3, or 4 days, meaning you can get in several mini-vacations in your timeshare unit or a timeshare rental.

Go ahead, schedule that interval timeshare you already own, or look into the great timeshare deals in rentals and resales, and then, as I wrote nearly two years ago, “Leave your alarm clock – whatever kind you prefer to use – in a different time zone and go on holiday.”

Take a timeshare vacation. You’ve earned it.