Dear Golf Industry Professional:
Happy New Year as we put the ’17 golf season in our rearview mirror and open a new chapter for our individual businesses and the industry at large. Record and pervasive cold weather along with snow in places like FL have been our welcoming present but our long-range forecast suggests that we won’t be fighting this headwind all year long. Speaking of long-range forecasts, we’ll have the “call” for ’18 at the national level along with all the news that’s fit to print at our ’17 State of the Industry (SoI) presentation at the Orange County Convention Center next week in the ING Hospitality Suite on Thursday, 1/25 from 10:30-11:30AM. There are a few seats remaining if you’d like to RSVP (up to our 125 seat capacity), use this link:
State of the Industry Registration
In addition, new this year will be a same day, same place afternoon panel discussion (3:30-5:00PM) on Golf Operator of the Future moderated by Jim Koppenhaver with panelists Matt Welliver (Chronogolf), Stuart Lindsay (Edgehill), Jason Wilson (Gallus Golf) and Scott Merchant (GolfBook). To register for that discussion (up to 125 room capacity), use this link:
Golf Operator of the Future Registration
Turning to our January issue, Publisher Jim Koppenhaver leads with a preview of the ’17 SoI highlighting the transactions, major events and his overall “call” on the year as it relates to progress on the key industry health metrics. He also looks into his crystal ball to make a couple of fearless predictions about what ’18 holds for the industry from TopGolf to GolfNow. To look into (his view of) the future, click here:
In addition, the January issue covers the following topics in our own inimitable style for the benefit of our loyal readers (critics also always welcome, bring facts please):
• Guest contributor Craig Kessler (Director of Governmental Affairs, Southern CA Golf Association), an erudite observer and interpreter of macro trends and causal factors in our 15+ year relationship, explores the potential puts & calls for the golf industry from the recent tax overhaul and minimum wage laws that have passed and what the net effect might be based on what we currently know.
• Contributing Editor Stuart Lindsay continues to build and support his case that the continuing advancements in technology will be a net benefit to golf but there will be plenty of detours and diversions along the way for unwitting operators. He taps into Stewart Darling’s thoughts on the topic from his perspective as both the Non-Executive Director of Scottish Golf by night and as a technology industry participant by day. It’s an interesting experience base and a unique perspective that also applies to the US.
• With Demo Day ’18 approaching next week, Editor-in-Chief Jim Dunlap outlines the successful growth of that event as well as offering suggestions on how to make it even stronger and give it “transportation” back to local facilities to copy and personalize it into unique day-long events that sell merchandise, provide entertainment (yes, in the same sentence as “golf”) and draw both new (more customers) and local golfers (incremental or higher share of rounds) to your facility. Novel concept…
• Plus the monthly Industry Scorecard (the only integrated scorecard of multi-source performance indicators) including the year-end weather impact results and November Utilization. We also chart the monthly timeseries for the year of Golf Playable Hours and Utilization while our Market Focus continues with the profile of San Diego CA as this month’s Market Focus which registers as the #1 healthiest of the Top 25 US Golf Markets in our annual ranking.
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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