Hello golf stakeholders:
With Halloween, the elections and Veterans Day (and the Marine Corps’ 249th birthday, Semper Fi) all in the rearview mirror, the ’24 season is in the final chapter and what a (record) book it’s going to be based on what we know from the Golf Market Research Center participants and our other collected data and metrics. Stuart and I are looking forward to another upbeat State of the Industry in Orlando in January to continue to confuse and confound those who labeled us “naysayers” for over a decade (accurately conveying poor industry results).
Speaking of Stuart, he headlines this month wading into the historically politically charged waters of whether municipal golf is an unfair competitor to the privately-held, public golf sector and its owner/operators. Making it recently relevant is the announcement of the NGCOA creating a Muni Community and inviting the former “non-owners” into the fold with the first organized forum of the group to be held in Orlando in January as part of the Golf Business Conference. As Stuart points out, despite differences in how their P&Ls are structured and decision-making processes, in the end both entities’ charge and success is in creating a desirable golf experience, getting golfers to try it and then convincing them to return through the strength of that experience and good customer relationship management. Read on for his (always unique) take.
Publisher Jim K. is again supporting cast and, inspired by the recent Lifetime Achievement Award presented to Tim Finchem as the “father of The First Tee”, takes us back on his observations of that program and its bumpy journey from inception in ’97, up to over 200 facilities built and operated by 2005 and to some significantly lower (but not publicly-reported) figure since with a transition to “lives touched” and affiliate programs and networks (some associated with actual golf courses, the majority not). Like many industry initiatives, we aimed for the stars, got the moon but then the moon actually turned out to be made of blue cheese (something completely different). Good things were done however and the new CEO under the PGA TOUR umbrella has a vision and good intentions so we’ll see where it goes from here. Being “quant guys”, we’re still waiting to see in the annual numbers of junior golfers the diversity dividend and also the significant bump in participation.
See below for the headlines to each of our recurring sections from the regional October weather impact map (modest up) to By-the-Numbers which provides the September and Year-to-Date results for Rounds and Utilization. We’ve already compiled the October golf operations performance scorecard “preview”, courtesy of our GMRC early-responders, which suggests that it was widely and significantly favorable on the key metrics of Revenue, Rounds and Rate (trifecta). 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).
GOLF OPERATIONS
2 Municipal golf being invited to the “owner’s party”
By Stuart Lindsay
GROW-THE-GAME
8 A look back at The First Tee’s “lifetime achievement”
By Jim Koppenhaver
COMINGS & GOINGS
12 10 Activities; “plants” & “plows” both represented this month
WEATHER IMPACT
14 Oct GPH a modest up +2%, Year-to-Date treads water at -2%
BY-THE-NUMBERS
16 Sep Utilization jumps 3 pts (rounds up, weather down), Year-to-Date improves to +2 pts
MARKET FOCUS
18 W Palm Beach FL debuts at #6 in new Market Strength ranking; still a Private golf mecca
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.
For those of you who would like our recently-updated complete US Golf Markets Strength Scorecard, it’s part of the Pellucid Publications Membership which can be ordered here (not available as a solo report). Delivered in an Excel workbook format, it provides key facts on all 207 DMAs for both the Size rankings (Rounds, Golfers, Holes) and the Strength scores and rankings (Pop Growth, Income Growth, Play Rate (Rds per Capita per Yr), Pub Golfers per Pub 18-hole equivalents and % Utilization). While the size rankings may not surprise you, there are guaranteed surprises when we factor out size and score every market by strength!
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