Pellucid has just released its annual update to the National Golf Consumer Franchise Scorecard and, unfortunately, the news isn’t good. For the 7th consecutive year, the number of golfers in the US declined and we saw declines in the involvement level among golfers as well. The scorecard covers the following areas:
• Golfers and Participation Rate – Both declined meaningfully (more than 2%) compared to the ’14 levels as did the other core consumer franchise metrics of Frequency Rate and Play Rate
• Involvement Level of Golfers – For the first time in recent years, we saw erosion in the Committed golfer group (40+ rds/yr) as well as in the Casual golfer group (1-9 rds/yr), this contradicts the other industry sources’ narrative that we’re only losing “fringe” golfers
• Demographic shifts – The Silent and Baby Boomer generations continue to be golf’s “anchor in the storm” while Early Career (Millennials and Gen X) continue to be under-represented on all key measures
The Excel workbook with the summary and detail figures includes the following facts:
• Core metrics of # of golfers, Participation Rate, Frequency Rate and Play Rate (rds/capita/yr) for ’15, change vs. ’14 (# and %) and 5-yr trend figure
• Involvement groups, size, change and share of total golfers for ’15, comparison to ’14 and 5-yr trend figure
• Demographics, # of golfers, Frequency Rate, Play Rate for ’15 vs. ’14 and 5-yr trend broken out by:
o Gender – male vs. female comparisons
o Age – 8 age groups and 5 summary groups (Juniors, Early Career, Mid-Career, Late Career, Seniors)
o Income – 7 income groups and 3 summary groups (less than $35K, $35-$75K, $75K+)
There are two ways to order and obtain the industry’s definitive consumer franchise accounting:
1. Become a Pellucid Publications Member ($495/yr, 40% discount vs. purchasing separately) – PPM subscribers receive all Pellucid publications as part of their annual membership. This includes:
• Outside the Ropes – monthly digital newsletter
• Geographic Weather Impact Tracking – Monthly report at US, 45 regions, 61 markets levels of the change in Golf Playable Hours and Utilization Rates (weather-adjusted rounds demand)
• State of the Industry suite – 50+ PowerPoint slides, 50 page PDF commentary report, access to 75 minute 2016 Orlando presentation video
• Top 25 US Golf Markets Health Scorecard – Excel spreadsheet of over 20 metrics and a relative, composite ranking of markets from San Diego to St. Louis
• National Consumer Franchise Health Scorecard – as described above
2. Purchase the National Consumer Franchise Health Scorecard via our website ($199)
We know it’s painful paying for “bad news” (we don’t make the news, we just report it), but your choice is to either be armed with accurate facts and trends or ignore them hoping things will get better. You’ll be in the industry stakeholder majority if you take the latter approach but you’ll make better decisions and be in smarter industry company if you adopt the former approach. Your choice, we’re here to arm the brave souls willing to meet the truth head-on.
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
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