Perhaps in the “too little, too late” category, September delivered the first positive year-over-year gain since February with Golf Playable Hours (GPH) up 3% for the month. This slightly reduced the negative Year-to-Date (YtD) weather impact to -3% vs. year ago. Regional breadth for the YtD period improved slightly yet remains negative at 1:1.9 with 11 regions having favorable weather offset by 21 regions with unfavorable weather (13 in the neutral zone of +/- 2%). The weekend vs. weekday distribution of weather variance continues to be driven primarily by weekdays (-4%) while weekends are less impacted (-1%) which is one bright spot in otherwise unfavorable weather this year.
Looking back on August rounds demand as reported by Golf Datatech/NGF to calculate the facility Utilization Rate (UR), the month showed a slight slippage at 52% (comprised of a 1% decrease in Played Rounds against flat Capacity Rounds). Based on that minimal impact, the YtD period Utilization held steady at 53% (comprised of a 3% decrease in Played Rounds against a 4% decline in Capacity Rounds) which is even with the 2010 year-end value. Among the YtD market utilization “winners” are Dallas and Seattle up 8 and 6 points respectively while the “biggest losers” in utilization are Cincinnati, Denver and Atlanta all dropping 3+ points among the markets that matter in rounds contribution. Dallas and Atlanta are showing rounds gains for the YtD period, the only difference being that Dallas is achieving that despite unfavorable weather (utilization gain) while Atlanta lags favorable weather (utilization decline).
Jim Koppenhaver comments, “The headline is channeling Stuart Lindsay who has repeatedly maintained that golfers are more like bears than squirrels in that early season weather favorability is rewarded with increased rounds but fall favorability is rewarded less, if at all. With nine months of weather in the books, it’s shaping up that the Northeast, Great Lakes, Texas and Pacific Northwest geographies will have played into a weather “headwind” for the year while the Southeast, Rockies and Nevada should have benefitted from favorable weather. It appears that California and the Desert Southwest will play to a weather “draw” unless there is significant activity in the closing quarter of the year. As the season comes to a close in the north and facilities are evaluating their performance and using it as framework for 2012 planning, it’s hard to imagine undertaking that seriously without incorporating weather’s impact (including using the weather Long-Term Norm for the upcoming year’s planning vs. using last year). Pellucid and Edgehill Golf Advisors recently made a pre-announcement of their new, web-based real-time weather impact reporting at the facility level to a limited group of clients and known sympathizers. More to come on this for the general public in the upcoming month (if you just can’t wait for the public release, contact Stuart Lindsay (edgehillgolf@msn.com) and ask for a sneak preview).”
On the facility golf fees (GF) revenue side via the August PGA PerformanceTrak numbers, the YtD period continues at a 1% decline comprised of a 2% decrease in rounds and a 1% increase in rate at the All Facility level (the good news is they fixed the erroneous math from last month, the bad news is it turned a rate increase of 4% reported for the year in July YtD into just 1% in August YtD, go figure). Coupled with the YtD change in GPH of -3%, this suggests that, according to PGA PerformanceTrak, facilities are beating the weather in GF revenue for the year by roughly 2 percentage points.
A broader and more detailed scorecard of the monthly key industry metrics can be found in Pellucid’s digital magazine, The Pellucid Perspective. To register to get the current and future editions, go to http://www.pellucidcorp.com/utilities/guest.html, select any of the existing services for information and it will register you to receive it.
In addition to the new Cognilogic delivery system, affordable weather impact tracking report options are available at regional level ($199/yr, 45 regions, 12 rpts), market level ($299/yr, 61 markets & 12 regions, 12 rpts) and individual facility level ($249, 3 years of history by month and day-of-week and current year forecast). For more specific information on how Pellucid’s Weather Impact capabilities answer key business performance questions, including a sample report and pricing, contact Jim Koppenhaver at jimk@pellucidcorp.com.
Contact:
Jim Koppenhaver, President, Pellucid Corp.
jimk@pellucidcorp.com
www.pellucidcorp.com
