Can it be too hot for golf?
You don’t know unless you can quantify heat’s impact
At the national level, it’s been a relatively benign first half to ’22 relative to the number and severity of extreme weather events. As I pointed out however in the June Weather Impact summary, despite that, it’s been one of those “sneaky poor” years so far with Golf Playable Hours down 9% Year-to-Date (YtD). This relative placidity has given way recently to an extended, broad geography heat wave which is breaking high temperature records across large portions of the US. In light of that, I thought we’d take a tour this month of Pellucid’s weather impact tools, Cognilogic (historical) and Foresight (forecast) to put some numbers on how that impacts capacity rounds which historically dampens actual rounds demand.
While weather, in and of itself unrelated to golf, is a “dark art,” Stuart and I have over the years taken the approach that it can be attacked mathematically (and, at times, tortured) to provide at least directional (up/down) and magnitude (a lot/a little) guidance on its impact on golf. In this issue we’ll approach the challenge-at-hand like this:
- A quick primer on weather impact and how we (attempt to) translate automated capture of local weather data from consistent stations into Golf Playable Hours and Capacity Rounds. This differs from alternate historical industry approaches like self-reported, arbitrary Golf Playable Days (the old PerformanceTrak method) or Tee Sheet Utilization (number of rounds booked (not necessarily even played after factoring out no-shows) vs. available tee sheet times which introduces the vagaries of changing daylight hours and no weather impact)
- A look at how the heat has impacted Capacity Rounds for one weather station in our Cognilogic system for the month of July when the mercury rises into the mid-90s and above and the quantification of that likely “hit” to demand
- We’ll then look at the same market through the lens of our Foresight 60-day forecast Capacity Rounds weather impact tool and see whether things will get better or worse over the next 30 days; again not just trying to figure up/down but quantifying what the likely impact magnitude will be for future revenue planning and marketing programming
- Finally, we’ll show you how those numbers get combined with one of our GMRC subscribers’ data in that market translating into the 2 metrics that matter: Golf Revenue-per-Available-Round (GRevpAR) and Utilization
For our subscribers, read on to get the supporting facts and insights. For everyone else, you can get the rest of the story one of three ways:
- Subscribe to the Pellucid Publications Membership for $495/yr (most comprehensive coverage & detail) – Annual subscribers get access to the following:
- Outside the Ropes monthly digital newsletter
- Annual State of the Industry report portfolio (PowerPoint presentation, PDF commentary report, access to Jim/Stuart video of presentation)
- Geographic Weather Impact Tracking (US, 45 regions, 61 markets) or Cognilogic for Golf Playable Hours/Capacity Rounds for individual facilities
- National Consumer Franchise Health Scorecard (expanded data and tables underlying this issue’s summary figures)
- Subscribe to OtR, 12 monthly issues for $250/yr (or you can opt for monthly payments of $25, annual term) with a money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied at any time during your subscription. Subscribers also get access to the historical archive of past issues (last two years) via the members-only section of the Pellucid website
- Subscribe to Golf Market Research Center (for operators wanting a combination of insights and action tools) – Here’s what’s included in the current “promo package” for either $500 annual or $450 for NGCOA members (or $45/mo or $41/mo respectively):
- Full suite of Performance Tracking reports – Market profile, comparative trends report and 7 KPI scorecard for any month and Year-to-Date for data provided by facility
- Facility-level Cognilogic historical weather impact portal/reports access, Golf Playable Hours & Capacity Rounds by day in current month, by months in current year and by day-of-week in current year with comparisons to Year Ago and the 10-Yr Norm
- Facility-level Foresight 60-day Capacity Rounds forecast, select forecast weather elements (hi/lo temp, daily precip etc.), variance to last year and long-term Normal. Not infallible but better than guessing or trying to collect all that yourself and organize it manually…
- Outside the Ropes monthly e-newsletter (consider this a sample of topics and treatments)
- State of the Industry Presentation, PowerPoint presentation slides of quantitative results and qualitative trends-to-watch as well access to 90-minute PGA Show presentation video
To learn more:
- Click here for 2-page program overview or
- Click here for 15-minute video demo (you do have to register to see video; don’t worry, you’re not signing up for anything)
- Click here to subscribe for a single facility
- Email me for multiple facilities or special situations
As always, samples of all our publications, reports and services are available on the Reports and Services pages of the Pellucid website.
©Copyright 2022 Pellucid Corp. All rights reserved. Quotations permitted with prior approval. Material may not be reproduced, in whole or part in any form whatsoever, without prior written consent of Pellucid Corp.
