Hello golf stakeholders:
Welcome to the dog days of July (and rolling thunderstorms) for much of the US as “across the pond” they tune up for the British Open (I know, I know, I’m just having some fun with our European diehards). We’re now in month 3 of the “core four” season months nationally (May-Aug = ~50% of annual rounds). Beyond the Perspective facts and figures in each issue, our Publications subscribers and Golf Market Research Center (GMRC) participants have seen the May Essential 8 KPI scorecard covering: Golf Revenue, Rounds Played, Avg. Rate/Rd, Capacity Rounds, % Utilization, Golf Revenue-per-Available Round, Avg. Peak WE Greens Fee (rate card changes) and % Effective Greens Fee (discount levels and change); see below for links to “be in the know” and out ahead of our June figures which will be published last week of this month.
Contributing Editor Stuart Lindsay headlines this month by dusting off his recollection of his economics education as it relates to the increasing infusion of Private Equity into the golf industry. The germane question is whether it represents a cyclical blip in external interest in golf as an ongoing “asset class” or whether we’re growing up enough for permanent status in that “club.” By good analyst and journalism standards, Stuart outlines the support points for both positions but, as always, has a “leaning” in one direction outlined at the end of his missive.
Publisher Jim K. looks at a parallel topic relating to golf’s maturity and flow of information relative to established, investment-grade industries. He hones in on customer data and play/purchase dynamics which have historically been locked away inside PoS systems and pre-empted by the lack of discipline by owner/operators to require/expect the collection of customer IDs for as many transactions as possible. Intelligent commercial investors historically have been more inclined to recognize and reward assets in value that have established customer counts, known churn dynamics and metrics like share-of-golfers and spend concentration (i.e. what % of spend do your Top 20% of customers represent?).
See below for the headlines to each of our recurring sections from the regional June weather impact (off slightly) to By-the-Numbers which provides the May and Year-to-Date results for Rounds (both periods up mid-single digits) and Utilization (up fractionally for the month, off fractionally YtD). We’ve already compiled the June golf operations performance scorecard “preview”, courtesy of our Golf Market Research Center (GMRC) early-responders, and the sneak peek suggests that Rounds will follow the decline in weather in direction but not magnitude (which will mean slight Utilization gain). If you want to know those numbers on a regular basis, you can either participate in GMRC (course operators) or sign up for a Publications Membership (everyone else).
INDUSTRY INVESTMENT OUTLOOK
2 Have golf courses become a real asset class? By Stuart Lindsay
CUSTOMER ANALYSIS & INSIGHTS
6 Is Customer Lifetime Value the “next big thing” for golf ? No By Jim Koppenhaver
COMINGS & GOINGS
10 Activities accelerate into summer (14 activities tracked), interesting Transactions
WEATHER IMPACT
12 June posts first bogey of the year at -3%, YtD moderates to neutral at +2%%
BY-THE-NUMBERS
14 May Utilization up marginally, YtD remains off marginally
MARKET FOCUS
16 Madison, WI weighs in at #25 in Golf Market Strength; didn’t see that one coming, did you?
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 (http://www.pellucidcorp.com/news/elist) to join the discussion and healthy debate.
