Dear Golf Industry Professional:

Whenever we think that we’re going to run out of topics and issues to talk about relative to our beloved little industry, some vendor, operator, trade association etc. comes to our rescue either doing or communicating something inane just in the nick of time. In mid-December TeeSnap parent, Allegiant Airlines, helped us out by sending an unsolicited email for their airline, resorts and travel services to a broad expanse of TeeSnap’s customer courses’ golfers (with the Fm line being the golf facility no less). This caused NGCOA’s Accelerate to light up like a Christmas tree (appropriate for the season) with angry exchanges and operators scurrying to re-read their contracts to see if Allegient could legally do this under a strict reading/interpretation of the agreement; the jury’s still out on that one. Guest columnist Harvey Silverman digs into what happened and tried to get comment from the various parties in order to piece together what the strategy was, what the owners “mood” was and what they were going to do about it (both individually and collectively). Read on by clicking the link below to either learn about the story or our perspective on how this might spin out and affect both TeeSnap’s business and the go-forward scrutiny that course operators need to apply to contracts with their technology vendors.

We are also sad to report in this issue the passing last week of our Editor-in-Chief Jim Dunlap. We open with an In Memoriam piece to our colleague. Click below for the range of articles and unique observations about the industry of golf: January Pellucid Perspective

In addition, the January issue covers the following unique and novel topics which have become the Perspective hallmark:

• Contributing Editor Stuart Lindsay previews the major themes of our upcoming, 16th annual, State of the Industry which we’ll present in Orlando next week.
• Publisher Jim Koppenhaver looks at recent trends in closures, transactions and other activities and asks, based on the significantly below-average weather in ’18, if ’19 might be the year of the “big close” as those who were just holding on got pushed over the edge by Mother Nature.
• Plus the monthly Industry Scorecard (the only integrated scorecard of multi-source performance indicators) including the December weather impact results (down big-time) and the November YtD Utilization (down again, rounds fall more than weather). We also chart the monthly timeseries for the year of Golf Playable Hours and Utilization while our Market Focus continues with the profile of Dallas, TX which registers as the 10th healthiest of the Top 25 US Golf Markets in our annual ranking. Plus a return of the Comings & Goings section (there was a lot of activity in Nov-Dec ’18!)

We recognize and thank our continuing sponsors; KemperSports, Troon Golf, Bayer CropScience, EZLinks Golf. For all those service providers and suppliers to the golf industry out there with the latest-and-greatest to offer to the industry thought-leaders who read our monthly publication, might we suggest 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, Jim Koppenhaver .

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 to join the conversation, discussion and debate.

We also continue to spread the word on Pellucid’s next generation golf course database, the Internet Golf Course Database (IGDB) with partners Apparation LLC, Never-Search and GolfCourseRanking.com. While no database will ever be 100% accurate, we continue to be surprised at the quantity and range of inconsistencies in course directories out there as well as the fact that most of the major tee time providers and recommendation sites (like GolfAdvisor) are propagating these phantom facilities and errors 5-10 fold for people doing Google searches online. Talk about an “echo chamber”… For more information on our comprehensive database, updated quarterly and refreshed completely every 12 months (all 15K+ US courses), contact Jim Koppenhaver at the email address above