“Sticks and stones will break my bones, but numbers will never hurt me.” April weather disproved that twist on the old adage as results for the month registered a 26% decline at the national level vs. Year Ago (YA). The April “storm” further dented the Q1 numbers resulting in a Year-to-Date (YtD) deficit of -23%. For the more curious who want to know if April was “abnormally poor,” yes it also trailed the 10-year Norm by double digits. In regional breadth for the YtD period, the unfavorability is widely distributed with a favorable/unfavorable breadth ratio of 1:4 with 8 weather-favorable regions countered by 34 weather-unfavorable regions (remaining 3 regions are in the neutral zone of +/- 2% with all 45 Pellucid weather-based regions in season). Looking at weather impact performance by day-of-week, the damage was relatively balanced between weekends and weekdays (results by day-of-week and the figures for weekday and weekend available to Pellucid subscribers). The considerably poor weather results through 4 months beg the question, “Will it get better?” Pellucid subscribers can see that we won’t be down by 20%+ by the end of the year but the balance-of-year forecast continues to deteriorate vs. the January “call.” If you’d like to join them in being in-the-know regarding those important details and having early-warning guidance, subscribe to the monthly Geographic Weather Impact report or our Cognilogic facility-level web-based information service by following the instructions and links at the end of this article.
Played Rounds data for March published by Golf Datatech continued the bad news/good news story when combined with weather impact. On an absolute basis, Played Rounds for the month registered -4% (was it our “fault”?) but that handily beat Mother Nature’s contribution in Available Rounds which we previously reported as down by double-digits producing a Utilization Rate jump for the 3rd consecutive month (no, we actually delivered weather-beating rounds results). For the YtD period we’re seeing Utilization gains driven by Played Rounds down less than5% against Available Rounds down less than 20%. Beneath this national picture, there are winners and losers in both Played Rounds and Utilization Rate among the 61 key Markets (including Pellucid’s designated Top 25 markets) and this mosaic is also available to Pellucid Publications members and Geographic Weather Impact report subscribers.
Jim Koppenhaver comments, “If it’s possible to cringe while performing the routine task of compiling and interpreting numbers, April produced that emotion as I progressed through the monthly task of extracting the Golf Playable Hours (GPH) figures across our 75 markets/regions. Looking at the map (available to our subscribers now and upcoming in the May Perspective), there is nary a green arrow east of the Rocky Mountains for either the month or the YtD. The lone exceptions nationally are the Pacific NW and the Central CA Valley. Unfortunately, those geographies don’t comprise enough rounds volume to make even a dent in the national picture so the overall picture is pretty ugly. Looking at March YtD results for Utilization at the 61 markets level, the silver lining to this cloud remains that Played Rounds aren’t fully reflecting the magnitude of unfavorable weather. This is illustrated in the favorable breadth of Utilization gainers which is now 5:1 (40 markets showing Utilization gains against 8 markets showing losses). Among Pellucid’s Top 25 US Golf Markets for the YtD period, 15 are now showing Utilization gains led by an unlikely story in Detroit (#21) which posted an 8% gain in Played Rounds against an 82% decline in Available Rounds (wow!?). Again, if you want to know the Top 25 Golf Markets which posted Utilization gains and how much, just go to our website and get on the Monthly Weather Impact subscription or sign up for Cognilogic (facility-level access via the web).”
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 5/15/18.
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 ($495 annually includes Outside the Ropes monthly newsletter, 2017 State of the Industry (Commentary report just released!), 2016 Industry Golf Consumer Franchise Scorecard, Geographic Weather Impact Analysis tracking, 2017 Top 25 US Golf Markets Scorecard (just updated!)
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 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
pellucidcorp.com
