Tall and athletic – he shot up from 5’10” to 6’4” during his sophomore summer – Travis loved basketball most, but golf crept in as another game he could pour himself into. At 18, he carded his first hole-in-one on Bryce’s par-3, hole #11. That tee box carries a second memory too: when the day wound down, he and a few friends who worked at the course would sometimes spin around and fire shots straight down the airport runway, a little Tin Cup moment to see who could hit it the farthest. “Definitely not recommended now,” he admits with a grin.
“Golf makes the world a smaller place and connects so many things,” Travis says. His most special round wasn’t about aces or long drives, but about family. In his early twenties, he played Capon Springs with his two uncles and his father riding in the cart – all three of whom had caddied there as boys. That round, more than any, stays with him.
Today, Travis balances golf with steel structures and apples. By training, he’s an engineer, now managing projects for a steel fabrication company in Verona and Richmond. By passion, he’s anchored in the apple business with his cousin Adam, who’s more like a brother. Their family has been in apples for generations, and together they now own the Marker-Miller Orchard Farm Market and Sunnyside Ciders. Each year they press more than a million pounds of apples into 100,000 gallons of cider – a far cry from the apples Travis once obliterated with his father’s clubs. From fresh cider to apple donuts to their fall squeeze-box press, everything is built on quality and tradition. They are also the makers of Rinker’s Apple Cider, with a recipe like no other in the Valley.
The cousins also share fairways. Travis plays Bryce whenever he can, now a 4-handicap who drove hole #12 the day we played. Adam is a long hitter too, the perfect scramble partner – a former collegiate baseball player who thrives under pressure.
Travis grew up in the middle of an orchard, and Adam just across the road from one. They’re carrying that heritage forward with a clear-eyed vision: artisan cider, family-rooted but scaled for the future. Travis’s sister now runs their market, and plans are already in motion to expand operations to Woodstock. “This is who we are,” he says. “Apples and family – it’s in our blood.”
