September, for better or worse, played out similar to its ’15 counterpart as Golf Playable Hours (GPH) as the national level figure came in -1% vs. Year Ago (YA) reducing the Year-to-Date favorability now to +1%. The YtD regional positive/negative breadth ratio swung into the unfavorable zone at 1:2 with 8 regions having favorable weather against 15 regions with unfavorable weather (the neutral zone regions of +/- 2% again increased to 22 at the end of September from 19 previously). Looking at YtD weather impact performance by day-of-week, weather favorability continued to skew to weekdays vs. weekdays which invokes a slight headwind to revenue (given weekday pricing is less favorable to facilities). With 9 months now in the books and northern climes in the post-Labor Day/College Football mode, it looks like we’re heading to a relatively flat finish barring something unforeseen on either the positive or negative (like Matthew) side of the balance point. Pellucid subscribers have a crystal ball into the remaining 3 months (barring acts of God) 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 August as published by Golf Datatech reported the monthly figure at -5% vs. YA (ouch!) which dragged the YtD level down a full point to +1%. Comparing that result to Pellucid’s previously-reported GPH results, we registered a slight decline in Utilization for the month as the significant demand decrease lapped the month’s GPH decline. For the YtD period, at the national level Utilization still looks like 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, “September’s results were a mixed bag resulting in a basic “net nothing” at the national level. Looking across the 45 region map visualization for the month, there’s no discernible pattern although the majority of the heartland and west Great Lakes regions were in the red. GPH gainers for the month were led by Atlanta and the Kansas/Oklahoma/Missouri region which had solid single-digit gains vs. YA. Among the biggest losers, the Great Lakes was a sea of red (bad pun) in GPH figures as well as Florida South and East PA/NY/NJ. Looking back at August Utilization, we took a hit at the national level which breaks our 3-month winning streak as the SW was particularly hard hit with rounds losses against favorable weather. In YtD Utilization performance breadth across the 61 markets, we’re basically playing to a tie with 11 up, 8 down and the majority (42) in the neutral zone. If you want to know which 8 markets are posting Utilization gains and how successful they’ve been against the weather results, you can get that level of detail information by subscribing to any of the weather impact services described above. The point is, it can be done and several markets are showing us how.”
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 10/15/16.
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 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, 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 CognilogicPellucid’s Online Store.
Contact:
Jim Koppenhaver, President, Pellucid Corp.
jimk@pellucidcorp.com
www.pellucidcorp.com
