May will be the first “acid test” of the year of a golf month with significantly loosened alternate recreation restrictions so we’ll wait to see how demand shifts but at least the weather wasn’t working against us in most regions. Golf Playable Hours (GPH) were up modestly vs. Year-Ago (YA) as the national figure advanced 3% compared to May ’20 (remember, Mother Nature doesn’t know nor care about COVID). That erased the previous Year-to-Date (YtD) deficit with GPH now registering flat through the end of May.
Played Rounds for April, as published by Golf Datatech, were (expectedly) a huge “up” coming in at +81% for the month against the highest point of COVID lockdowns in ’20. To the critical question of how much of the “up” was due to weather, recall that the GPH favorability for April reported last month was +9% so we clocked in at +39 pts for Utilization marking our 11th consecutive month of beating the weather, wow!
A broader description of the May results can be found at our website in the Featured Items section or you can get the full picture by subscribing to either the Pellucid Publications Membership or the Geographic Weather Impact report. Both provide the 45 regional breakdowns, the 61 markets figures, the day-of-week weather impact and the Year-End National GPH forecast figure as well as our full commentary on the results every month.
Let’s talk for a minute about local level performance. The Golf Market Research Center (GMRC) pilot participants have been able to view all these calculations specific to their facility for the past 2 months now for free. The GMRC gives you visibility to your Market Profile and, after you enter your Rounds, Golf Revenue and Peak Season GF Rate by month, to immediately see your results through our comparative reports with integrated weather impact. So how do you “get in on the action”? Glad you asked…
- You can email jim@pellucidcorp.com, to subscribe as a Charter Member (see below for benefits) and get started by inputting your information through May
- If you’d like more information you have two options:
The Charter Member subscription period is 6/1-7/31 and the benefits from being in on the ground floor include:
- Future pricing “favored nation” status
- Annual license to Cognilogic (historical weather impact, facility-specific, web portal delivered, unlimited use, $180/yr if bought individually)
- Annual license to Cognilogic Foresight (60 day Capacity Rounds and weather variable forecast, facility-specific, also web portal delivered/unlimited use, $360/yr if bought individually)
- Participation in the GMRC revenue-rebate co-op program
Final cherry-on-top, the NGCOA recently announced that we’re now part of their SmartBuy program so there’s a member benefit for the GMRC annual subscription. The Charter Member train is leaving the station; after 8/1 you’ll still be able to subscribe, you just won’t get any of the benefits above (particularly the revenue rebate co-op program)!