Much has been written in this presidential election season about the “Alt Right” voters on the Republican side. For those unfamiliar with the term, defined by Wikipedia it’s “a segment of right-wing ideologies presented as an alternative to mainstream conservatism in the United States.” In other words, they associate with conservatives but the feeling isn’t necessarily mutual. The golf industry was way ahead of this, we’ve had “alt golf” since the late 1990s and it’s taken several forms through the years from Par 3 courses (some lighted) to Executive Courses to FootGolf to TopGolf (and beyond as I’ll outline in the body of this article).
Alt golf is one of those things that appeals to analysts like me. On the surface it “checks the boxes” of challenges/barriers stated by non-golfers as to why they don’t play (time, difficulty, price, (rules/etiquette?)). Extending that logic, we should be able to produce alt golf at the right quantities, in the right locations and at the right value point and convert new golfers and incremental rounds. So far… wrong! In this issue I’ll take a look the various permutations of alt golf and speculate (I don’t have the definitive answer to this) on why these options aren’t expanding the golfer base or materially improving the health of the industry thusfar:
• Alt golf 101 – We built a number of Learning & Practice facilities as part of the build-a-course-a-day mania, how did they fare?
• Alt golf 102 – Enter TopGolf
• Alt golf 103 – FootGolf anyone?
• Alt golf 104 – FlyingTee and an upcoming TMaG-backed offering
While much of this still needs time to fully play out, similar to tracking opening weekend Box Office revenue, you can make directionally correct predictions on the trajectory and lifespan of those which have been in market for a couple years or more (all of the above except FlyingTee and the new stealth entry which is shaping up to be a TopGolf knock-off). Given the trajectory of golfers and rounds over the past 5-10 years, it’s hard to see where any of them are providing any substantial lift or creating a bigger tent for golf.
For our subscribers, read on for my take on the supporting fact and color commentary. For our Executive Summary recipients, you can get the rest of the story one of three ways (all can be previewed and purchased at Pellucid’s website (www.pellucidcorp.com):
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