I’m recently back from our 23rd consecutive, annual Orlando pilgrimage which included delivering my 22nd State of the Industry (SoI) presentation with eternal colleague Stuart Lindsay (virtually) by my side to explain the industry’s more qualitative trends to watch and projections on which of those will matter 5 years from now. We were joined for the 2ndyear by colleague and collaborative partner Ross Liggett, Founder of Metolius, to outline the progress of data-to-cloud adoption and how it is (and will continue) improving actionable analysis, Customer Relationship Management and portability of your data (transactions, financial and customer base) as a critical backup. We continued this year to be able to present the only industry “proxy” scorecard for Golf Revenue and Rates (rate card and effective (or what we ultimately got per-round played) through the participation and monthly inputs of our Golf Market Research Center (GMRC) participants.
Given the amazing industry results in ’24, which affords us to be the uncharacteristic “bearers of good news”, I thought we’d have some fun with reporting the results and view it through the lens of a golf scorecard and scoring system which is what produces the headline of this article. In this issue, I’ll outline how Pellucid constructed the scorecard, the scoring system and, finally, how each hole/metric was “scored for ’24/’23 (the latter for the golfer-based metrics since the consumer survey is always collected “in arrears” (i.e. the survey is currently in the field asking golfers about their participation and play for calendar year ’24)):
- Scorecard construction – The 14 holes/Key Performance Indicators start with our cardinal (highest order, compound measures) metrics of Golf Revenue-per-Available Round (GRevpAR), Utilization, Velocity and Play Rate (Rds/capita/yr) and cascade down through lower-level KPIs such as Rate Card price change and Participation Rate (the diagram outlining all 14 and their relationships is included; “a picture’s worth a thousand words”…)
- Scoring method – We tried to equate degree-of-difficulty of the KPIs’ performance to that of achieving an ace, eagle, birdie, par and bogey (didn’t have to wrestle with defining the dreaded double-bogey for this rendition).Semi-arbitrarily we awarded scores with this criteria:
- Ace (significant gain+modern-era record)
- Eagle (simply a record)
- Birdie (significant gain, short-of-record)
- Par (slightly over/under year ago performance)
- Bogey or worse, fortunately for this year’s scorecard I didn’t have to define this
- Scoring results – As a sneak preview, the scorecard reads 6 aces, 1 eagle, 2 birdies and 5 pars for the 14 KPIs we created and track. In the full article we’ll quantify which measures received which score, the underlying performance figures and their variance vs. the previous year
This year’s scorecard and our multi-year effort to construct and compile the information to populate it once again underpins our 20+ year effort and dedication to provide accurate, unbiased visibility and clarity to industry performance, health and trends without regard to what we feel or the industry would like to hear. My favorite college English professor and mentor, Dr. Tony Redd, from whom I “stole” our name (his email was pellucid77@), defined Pellucid as “seeing to the very heart of a matter.” We attempt to do that faithfully and eternally.
For our subscribers, keep scrolling down 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 comprehensive Pellucid Publications Membership for $495/yr or $45/mo (annual term), subscribers get access to the following:
- Outside the Ropes monthly digital newsletter
- Annual State of the Industry report & video (75-slide PowerPoint presentation plus online access to Jim/Stuart Orlando presentation video)
- Geographic Weather Impact Tracking (US, 45 regions, 61 markets) or Cognilogic for daily/monthly 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 $25/mo (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 an annual GMRC subscription 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, report & video (75-slide PowerPoint presentation plus online access to Jim/Stuart Orlando 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
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