February weather results once again lagged last year’s level of Available Rounds for the month registering -17% at the national level vs. Year Ago (YA). That slightly improved on the uglier January results bringing the Year-to-Date (YtD) deficit “up” to the level of -23%. In regional breadth, we continue to have a balanced distribution of gainers vs. losers at 1:1 with 9 weather-favorable regions countered by 10 weather-unfavorable regions (5 in-season regions were in the neutral zone of +/- 2% with the remaining 21 regions being out-of-season by Pellucid’s rules for Golf Playable Hours). Looking at weather impact performance by day-of-week, the unfavorability “pain” registered across all days with the weekdays being slightly more negative than the weekends. With 10 months (and the core months of May-Aug) in the season yet to play, it’s still way too early to panic but Pellucid subscribers already know our weather impact “call” for the year contained in their February report and also in our recently-published State of the Industry presentation. If you’d like to join them in being in-the-know regarding where weather impact will likely land for the full year nationally and by our 45 weather-based regions, subscribe to the monthly Geographic Weather Impact report or our Cognilogic web-based information service by following the instructions and links at the end of this article.
Played Rounds data for January published by Golf Datatech produced good news/bad news if you know the context of weather. On an absolute basis, Played Rounds for the month registered -5% (SAD!) but that significantly beat what Mother Nature provided us in Available Rounds which we previously reported as down by double-digits producing a significant Utilization Rate jump for the month (GLAD!). These results are also the YtD figures with only one month reported. Utilization Rate figures for the month at the National and 61 key Markets level (including Pellucid’s designated Top 25 markets) are also available to Pellucid Publications members and Geographic Weather Impact report subscribers.
Jim Koppenhaver comments, “February wasn’t our friend weather-wise at the national level with the only silver lining being that Playable Rounds were “less negative” than January’s results (how’s that for finding a positive spin?). Once again, we had a significant decline at the national level in Available Rounds but fairly balanced regional breadth so it means the “down” regions were down significantly more than the “up” regions were up. Looking at the map, the West Coast and Desert SW were the “places to be” weather-wise through February while the SE Coast, Florida, Gulf Coast and Texas geographies all are deeply in the red. The good news was in the January Utilization where rounds declined only moderately against pretty bleak weather results. Looking at January results for the YtD Utilization at the 61 markets level, we had significantly favorable breadth which again means that the down markets were some combination of “down more” as well as likely being higher rounds contribution markets (recall that we weight the results by the number of annual rounds contributed by each market). Among Pellucid’s Top 25 US Golf Markets for the YtD period (those which are in-season), only 3 had Utilization declines led by Miami (#14) which lost 8 points (like the stock market, last year they were the highest Utilization gainer for the year, what happened?). Again, if you want to know the other two Utilization losers or how far up the advancing markets were, just go to our website and get on the Monthly Weather Impact subscription.”
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 http://www.pellucidcorp.com/news/elist, fill in the information and you’ll be registered for the next edition on 3/15/18.
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 Cognilogic.
You can order any of the above information services via Pellucid’s Online Store.
Contact:
Jim Koppenhaver, President, Pellucid Corp.
jimk@pellucidcorp.com
www.pellucidcorp.com
