Dear Golf Industry Professional:
As we enter the Thanksgiving holiday season, hopefully we’ll all pause from the rigors of our industry and be thankful for the blessings of family, freedom, health, work that’s fun and rewarding (albeit trying at times) and relative prosperity. After that reflection and a short break next week….it’s back to work!
Pellucid doesn’t pause in the winter months, although some would argue that this is also the industry’s “silly season” as rounds counts, expense lines and weather variance fade into the background for much of the country. For the planners among us, this is the time when ’18 strategy, plans, programs and budgets are being thought out and that should mean that information now swings to front and center to inform those decisions. Speaking of strategy, our lead story this month by Publisher Jim Koppenhaver checks in on the 5-year WGF strategy of growing golfers to 30M and rounds to 550M. As Steve Mona outlined back in a ’13 interview, the end of ’17 was their stated target for reaching those lofty milestones. To read Jim’s handicapping on that bet click here:
In addition, the November issue covers the following topics in our own inimitable style for the benefit of our loyal readers (critics also always welcome, bring facts please):
• Editor-in-Chief Jim Dunlap covers a company and its founder which are methodically chipping away at a business model to expose the next generation and their Millennial (ME) parents to the game of golf. Total Golf Adventures and founder Josh Jacobs have developed and are refining an after-school and summer camps program that provides physical activity, a safe environment and a realistic “bridge” to regular golf experiences. The unique aspect is that they’re doing it in a for-profit model vs. the pure philanthropy play and they’re finding that the kids are pretty good “hook” to getting their Millennial parents interested and, in some cases, engaged in the sport as well.
• Contributing Editor Stuart Lindsay takes a satirical look at our industry’s obsessions with signs, particularly those that start with the words “no, don’t” etc… The beauty of good satire is that it’s firmly rooted in underlying truth and Stuart’s point is that no one (and particularly MEs) enjoy a customer experience rooted in “Thou shalt nots” and we could do a much better job cloaking the constraints and courtesies of golf on the course in a little humor and humility.
• Plus the monthly Industry Scorecard (the only integrated scorecard of multi-source performance indicators) including weather impact for the October month (down significantly) and Year-to-Date (still flat at the end of 10 months), September Utilization (up; rounds up marginally, weather flat). We also chart the monthly timeseries for the year of Golf Playable Hours and Utilization while our Market Focus continues with the profile of Columbus, OH as this month’s Market Focus which registers as the 16th healthiest of the Top 25 US Golf Markets in our annual ranking.
We recognize and thank our continuing sponsors; KemperSports, Troon Golf, Bayer CropScience and EZLinks Golf. Speaking of proactive planning for ’18, might we suggest, to additional industry stakeholders not in the above list who want to increase their brand exposure and be associated monthly with intelligent discussion on key issues, considering joining our merry little band through our most popular 12-month sponsorship program (offered at an improved value relative to our entry-level 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 jim@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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