Heat, humidity and rain interruptions again took their toll as Golf Playable Hours (GPH) as the national level figure came in 3% below Year Ago (YA) reducing the Year-to-Date favorability to just under +2%. The YtD regional positive/negative breadth ratio remained neutral at 1:1 with 12 regions having favorable weather against 14 regions with unfavorable weather (the neutral zone regions of +/- 2% swelled to 19 at the end of August from 12 previously). Looking at YtD weather impact performance by day-of-week, weather favorability swung back to weekdays vs. weekdays (it’s like a seesaw this year) which again invokes a slight headwind to revenue (given weekday pricing is less favorable to facilities). With 8 months now in the books and weather gradually giving up much of the Q1 favorability (+20%, remember?), the $64M question is, “Where will weather end the year?” Pellucid subscribers know the answer to this question because the supporting figures for the 2016 full-year comparative GPH for Total US, the comparison to the 10-year average and the day-of-week breakdowns are available in the Geographic Weather Impact Tracking report or Pellucid Publications suite via the Client Login section at the Pellucid website. Cognilogic facility weather impact subscribers also know these figures for their individual facility (go to www.pellucidcorp.com to subscribe or for more information; for information-seekers we’ll send you a sample of the ’15 1st half actual results to review).
Rounds demand data for July as published by Golf Datatech reported the monthly figure at -1% vs. YA and the YtD level registering at +2%. Comparing that result to Pellucid’s previously-reported GPH results, we registered a slight gain in Utilization for the month (we’ll take it) with the slight demand decrease outpacing the month’s GPH decline. For the YtD period, at the national level Utilization manages to play to a draw with the slight gain in rounds nearly matching the favorable weather results. Utilization figures for the month at the National and 61 key Markets (including Pellucid’s designated Top 25 markets) level are also available to Pellucid Publications members and Geographic Weather Impact report subscribers.
Jim Koppenhaver comments, “August’s results continue the pattern we saw in July with a combination of temperature and heat index contributing to the decline in many regions across the country. There was some rain activity mixed in but it was mostly the muggy conditions that DQ’d a number of hours from being “playable” using Pellucid’s definitions. GPH gainers for the month were led by Desert SW which had double-digit gains vs. YA as well as more modest gains for the Great Lakes, South Florida and Minnesota. Among the biggest losers, the Northeast was a sea of red in GPH figures as well as the Ohio Valley. Looking back at July Utilization, we held our own at the national level which marks the 3rd month this year in which we notched a Utilization gain (Apr, Jun, Jul). Relative to previous years where we were lucky to post more than 2 months of gains across the entire year, we’re doing slightly better this year at the national level in outperforming weather. We still don’t appear to have cracked the code on this but as evidence that we’re getting better, we also have 13 markets which have YtD Utilization gains so there are benchmarks that it can be done (again, if you want to know which 13 markets are beating the weather through July, it’s available to our subscribers in their monthly report).”
A broader and more detailed scorecard of the monthly key industry metrics 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 9/15/16.
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 TrackingSubscribe to the Pellucid Publications Membership (Outside the Ropes monthly newsletter, 2015 State of the Industry, 2015 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 (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
