Tyler and Trace Rucarean grew up playing golf in Gainesville. They swung clubs for Buchholz High School and Oak Hall School before Tyler joined UF’s golf team in 2005.

After more than a decade in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Tampa, the Rucarean brothers returned to Gainesville and used turf and conduit to finally build a startup dream they had considered for a couple of years.

Future Country Club opened off Archer Road on the Fourth of July weekend last year and quickly hit its membership limit. In November, a second location started in the Millhopper area off NW 43rd Street.

Once again, the membership-style club sold out with around 130 members between the two locations. The Rucareans said residents want to enjoy golf despite the slim options in Alachua County. The county is an weird combination of golf enthusiasm, like UF’s team, despite a seeming lack of infrastructure, they said.

“Golf is kind of dead in Gainesville,” Trace said. “There’s not really a good place to practice. A lot of people go down to Ocala if you want better golf.”

The brothers lived by Gainesville Country Club, and their first jobs were on the course. They also participated in tournaments at West End Golf Course and hit balls at Meadowbrook Golf Course—each now closed.

Indoor golf with simulators already exists in bigger cities. Joining a location in Tampa inspired the brothers to build their own, but with some changes.

Trace and Tyler said most indoor golf businesses are open to the public and operate as a half-bar for people to hang out and hit balls, like Dave and Busters but with only golf.

Their vision, and now reality, is a private club where members can book an hour or two hours for the exclusive use of a golf bay and simulator. The original Archer Road location only has one bay; the new Millhopper branch has two, each in spacious separate rooms with couches, chairs and paintings.

The locations are open from 4 a.m. until midnight to accommodate different work shifts, and Tyler said they’ve got the ability to stay open 24/7, if they want. It’s been a request by members who work odd shifts at UF Health and other locations.

Tyler said the off hours allow the machines to rest and the brothers to clean the locations. They said the work of creating and maintaining the clubs has been fun—and gives them nearly unlimited golf practice as well.

Each member has a combination to enter the building and is trained to operate the simulator. The Rucareans are the only employees, and the clubs practically run themselves.

Tyler said the club is meant to complement, not replace, the outdoor golf course experience.

Serious golfers can focus on one particular swing and get instant replay from cameras to see exactly how they hit the golf ball. And beginners can shank drive after drive without feeling self-conscious.

“It’s very spread, I would say, our membership across good, advanced players and people that they’ve played golf twice before, they get a couple lessons with Tyler and now they’re getting into it,” Trace said.

He said Future Country Club started holding events like In Real Life Fridays to let members meet. Some members schedule tee times together to hang out, and each member can bring others to practice during a booked time.

The club can even serve to host a business meeting with a client while ordering food and hitting some golf balls.

Tyler said the brothers landed on 130 members through more art than hard science. The number keeps the business viable while also ensuring plenty of open tee times. They said same-day tee times are somewhat available and open slots for the next day are easy to book. If a member looks two days in advance, they’ll probably have their pick of times.

Part of that is the membership tier structure. The highest tier is called Unlimited Member and allows, like it sounds, an unlimited number of daily tee times per month. There’s also an option for 10 hours, five hours and two hours per month. The tiers range from $299 a month to $69 a month.

The brothers have already entered preliminary talks for a third location in the city of Alachua that could open before a full year in business. The new spot would allow roughly 50 new members to join.

Future Country Club has a waitlist of potential future members who continue to ask about when a spot might be available, they said. Eventually, the brothers might look at a national franchise model.

One national franchise, X-Golf, announced its imminent arrival at Celebration Pointe but has yet to open. Butler Plaza announced another potential equivalent, Arnold Palmer CenterCup, and even held a groundbreaking. But construction seems to have stopped.

But the brothers said both will cater to one-time, daily customers with food and drinks. It’s set up for a fun event, but not serious practice. Those experiences might give locals a taste of indoor golf that then pushes them to Future Country Club, the Rucareans said.

The brothers looked at existing franchise models but said the large upfront costs and percentage of revenue taken by corporate turned them off. Already, they’ve had interested parties reach out to discuss starting their own Future County Club, talking through costs, member turnover and logistics.

“I want to scale up; 50 locations would be cool,” Trace said.