At the national level, September weather came in mathematically flat as Golf Playable Hours (GPH) registered the same amount as Year Ago (YA). That result stabilized the positive Year-to-Date (YtD) results at +1% vs. YA or statistically flat. The YtD regional positive/negative breadth ratio slipped slightly but remains positive at 2:1 with 18 regions having favorable weather against 8 regions with unfavorable weather (19 regions now fall in the neutral zone of +/- 2%). Looking at YtD weather impact performance by day-of-week, favorability is exclusively found in weekdays vs. weekends which has both rounds and revenue downside implications. Looking to the year-end forecast for GPH, we’re projecting to be not 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 Tracking report 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 August rounds played as reported by Golf Datatech/NGF to calculate the facility % Utilization Rate (UR), the rounds demand increase (+2%) was better than the decrease in GPH (-2%) producing a solid gain in Utilization for the month. For the YtD period, statistically flat rounds demand trails the modestly positive GPH figures resulting in lower Utilization through August vs. YA. The supporting figures are also contained in the Geographic Weather Impact Tracking report or Pellucid Publications Membership monthly updates. A recent enhancement for our subscribers is 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, “There’s really not much news in the September weather impact at the national level (sometimes that, in and of itself, is good news) but we did see some interesting market swings such as Phoenix having a very strong month which nearly eliminated the GPH deficit to YA coming into the month. FL South also benefitted from a very strong positive “comp” to the same period last year on GPH so the “folks south of Orlando” should have also been bouyed by a weather tailwind comparatively. Looking back at the August Utilization figures, we saw great (and unusual) performance on generating rounds demand at the national level as the weather went down yet we drove more demand (we haven’t seen this combination at the national level in over 15 months for those of you at home keeping score). It at least offers hope that we’re not inextricably tied to weather and we can produce utilization gains driven by higher rounds demand vs. our previous gains which have been declines in rounds but just less than the weather unfavorability. With 9 months behind us and the northern climates’ season drawing to a close, it looks like we’re headed to playing largely a “draw” at the national level on several of our key metrics. While not a bad thing necessarily given the current, longer-term macro industry trends, for those on the bubble it’s not going to help them get healthier or even hang in there (for the more desperate). Flat appears to be the new up.”
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 10/15/15.
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
