At the national level, August weather came in materially lower as Golf Playable Hours (GPH) registered down 3% vs. Year Ago (YA). That result continued to erode the positive Year-to-Date (YtD) results which now register at +1% vs. YA or statistically flat. The YtD regional positive/negative breadth ratio also slipped but remains positive at 3:1 with 20 regions having favorable weather against 8 regions with unfavorable weather (17 regions now fall in the neutral zone of +/- 2%). Looking at YtD weather impact performance by day-of-week, favorability continued to be considerably stronger in weekdays vs. weekends which has both rounds and revenue downside implications. Looking to the year-end forecast for GPH, we’re projecting to not be far off the 10-yr average (which would be a marginal “up” vs. ’14). The supporting figures for the 2015 full-year comparative GPH for Total US, the comparison to the 10-yr average and the day-of-week breakdowns are available to Geographic Weather Impact Analysis tracking purchasers or Pellucid Publications Members via the Client Login section at the Pellucid website (go to www.pellucidcorp.com to subscribe or for more information; for information-seekers we’ll send you a sample of the ’14 1st half actual results to review).
Looking back at July rounds played as reported by Golf Datatech/NGF to calculate the facility % Utilization Rate (UR), the flat rounds demand result (0%) was better than the decrease in GPH (-2%) producing a slight gain in Utilization for the month. For the YtD period however, flat rounds demand trails the modestly positive GPH figures resulting in lower Utilization through July vs. YA. The supporting figures are also contained in the Weather Impact Tracking report or Pellucid Publications Membership monthly update. New this month to subscribers, we’ve added the current month GPH change for the 61 markets that align with the GolfDatatech/NGF universe for a monthly “preview” of what to expect when rounds are reported the following month.
Jim Koppenhaver comments, “Given that in the core months of June through August we don’t normally see big variations in GPH, while the month’s weather unfavorability didn’t match the stock market “correction,” to see a 2%+ drop in August is unusual for us. Sometimes that’s due to an active storm season in the Atlantic and the Gulf but this year it appears to be not precipitation that hurt us but unusually warm and humid conditions across a number of geographies which eliminated Playable Hours by exceeding our absolute and relative temperature boundaries. While the correlation of demand changes due to heat/humidity isn’t as strong as precipitation, if I were a betting man I’d lay good money on the fact that we’ll see a decline in demand for August when the figures are published a month from now. Particularly hard hit on the August weather were key regions of Desert SW, Florida North and Minnesota with all seeing a 10%+ decline in GPH for the month vs. YA. Using the newly-added current month GPH report at market-level, expect to see 4 of the Top 10 markets take a hit on demand based on the GPH results for August (San Francisco, Orlando, Houston and Phoenix). On the brighter side, June was slightly encouraging as we held our own in rounds demand against a slight decline in GPH marking our 3rd straight month of either holding or improving Utilization.
A broader and more detailed scorecard of the monthly key industry metrics, including the Revenue and Rate figures, can be found in Pellucid’s free digital magazine, The Pellucid Perspective. To register to get the current and future editions, go to www.pellucidcorp.com/news/elist, fill in the information and you’ll be registered for the next edition on 9/15/15.
Intelligent, curious and courageous industry stakeholders wanting the detailed metrics and monthly updates on weather impact at the national, regional and market level as well as utilization and the full year forecast numbers have two subscription options:
• Subscribe to the Geographic Weather Impact Analysis Tracking service ($299, 12 reports annually at national, 45 weather regions and 61 key markets levels) or
• Subscribe to the Pellucid Publications Membership (Outside the Ropes monthly newsletter, 2014 State of the Industry, 2013 Industry Golf Consumer Franchise Scorecard, Geographic Weather Impact Analysis tracking, 2014 Top 25 US Golf Markets reports, Golf Participant Base Projection analysis) for $495 annually.
For individual facility owner/operators who need facility-level history, current year results by month and day-of-week and full year forecast data, Pellucid/Edgehill’s self-serve, web-delivered, real-time weather impact service product, Cognilogic, is your answer. It’s available for $240 for the year-end report and unlimited annual access via the Cognilogic web portal or $120 for a single year-end report. For more information, contact Stuart Lindsay of Edgehill Golf Advisors (mailto:edgehillgolf@msn.com) or click here Order Cognilogic.
You can order any of the above information services via Pellucid’s Online Store.
Contact:
Jim Koppenhaver, President, Pellucid Corp.
jimk@pellucidcorp.com
www.pellucidcorp.com
