Dear Golf Industry Professional:
Perhaps it’s an omen of the “end of times” when the industry headline this month is the USGA eliminating and simplifying the Rules of Golf. It sent us scrambling for our Bibles to read the Book of Revelation and see if there were any scriptural references to such activity. Having found none, we must just assume that this is unusually bold (might we say overdue?) behavior by golf’s governing body and we’ll see if it has any impact on the sport or the industry which are our primary concerns as stakeholders in the health (not tradition) of the game.
Taking our cue from the USGA pronouncement, Publisher Jim Koppenhaver sees the USGA rules simplification and ups the ante with his piece on why the recreational side of golf ought to ignore the rule book altogether and adopt his 10 Guidelines for Golf at every non-Private US facility. Start by banning the word “no” when introducing non-golfers to the game and focus on safety and fun in that order. The traditionalists in our industry and more serious golfers probably won’t take the “10 Guidelines pledge” but he’s more interested in the other 19M golfers and 280M non-golfers getting this message and dialing in. To get his take and how far out of bounds he’s hit this drive; click below for the current issue:
In addition, the March issue covers the following topics in our pursuit of providing monthly edutainment for our readers:
• Stuart Lindsay provides a complementary suggestion to making golf more user-friendly and in step with the times in his piece outlining how we take the perceived stuffiness out of golf by introducing and explaining etiquette in as few and simple terms as possible. While we’re not trying to convey that we’re stodgy or inflexible, perception is reality and the current perception we’re giving off says “Boooring.”
• Guest contributor Chris Charnas, veteran of Cushman & Wakefield and now the principal of Links Capital Advisors out of Chicago, opines and supports his opinion that the current buy-sell metrics for the vast majority of golf facilities aren’t great and aren’t going to measurably improve in the near future. Coming from someone who makes their living facilitating transactions, that’s stern stuff but not inconsistent with the volume and multiples of transactions that we’ve been privy to over the past 2-3 years.
• Editor-in-Chief Jim Dunlap covers leadership changes in the world’s largest golf management company, Troon Golf, set in motion by COO John Easterbrook who makes a career change taking the newly-created Chief Membership Officer position at the PGA of America. The rotation promotes several Troon veterans to new positions and more responsibility while maintaining a solid core of continuity as Dana Garmany outlines.
• Plus the monthly Industry Scorecard (the only integrated scorecard of multi-source performance indicators) including the February month (another great month, better for East than West) and Year-to-Date (still big up so far, your actual mileage will vary depending on your geography) weather impact, January Utilization (down but due to rounds up but nowhere near the weather bonanza), and the year-end December equipment sales figures (a sea of red, close the books and move on) as well as Phoenix, AZ as this month’s Market Focus which registers as the 8th healthiest of the Top 25 US Golf Markets in our annual ranking.
We recognize and thank our continuing sponsors; KemperSports, Troon Golf and Bayer CropScience as well as welcoming returning sponsor EZLinks Golf to the Perspective family! As the season opening approaches here in the northern climes and stakeholders move from strategy & planning to execution, those wanting to increase their brand exposure and be associated monthly with intelligent discussion on key issues could benefit from our successful 12-month sponsorship offering at a slight discount vs. the basic six month sponsorship rate. Twelve-month sponsors also receive all Pellucid industry-standard reports (State of the Industry, Outside the Ropes, Monthly Weather Impact Tracking (Nat’l, Reg’l, Markets), Top 25 US Golf Markets Scorecard and National Golf Consumer Franchise Health Scorecard). Sponsorship provides monthly exposure to approximately 30K industry leaders and followers and associates your brand with Pellucid’s effort to expand intelligent thinking on today’s most challenging industry issues. For more “opportunistic” spenders, we might suggest one of our smaller-bite “Ad Partner” programs for those who may not be able to make a 6 or 12-month commitment (as short as 3 months are now available) or who may not need a half page or more exposure (quarter pages now available). If you’re interested in knowing more about sponsorship opportunities or are interested in a preview of our ad partner options, contact Editor-in-Chief Jim Dunlap (760-212-3714, jdgolfer@cox.net).
If you know of associates who would benefit from the topics and insights covered in this issue, feel free to forward this email and encourage them to register on the Pellucid website (http://www.pellucidcorp.com/news/elist) to join the conversation, discussion and debate.
As always, you can review and order any of Pellucid’s range of reports and services at www.pellucidcorp.com. We also want to bring to your attention Pellucid’s recently- announced participation in the next generation golf course database, the Internet Golf Course Database (IGDB) with partners Apparation LLC, Never-Search and GolfCourseRanking.com. For more information on this comprehensive database, updated quarterly and refreshed completely every 12 months (all 15K+ US courses), contact jimk@pellucidcorp.com. From the numbers and details of how our industry’s consumer base is changing at the national level to our individual facility-level services including weather impact (Cognilogic) and market analysis (Golf Local Market Analysis), we’ll keep you one step ahead of the competition in this continuing challenging industry landscape.
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