Greetings golf stakeholders:
Peak golf month (July perennially for rounds played nationally) is now in the books and anecdotal evidence, as well as the May-June trendline, suggests that we’ll see healthy gains in rounds played and likely moderate gains in revenue. What we’ve now learned is that the remedy for two decades of golf industry malaise is…a pandemic. To be more accurate, and more humane, it’s not a health crisis but rather taking away other activities that compete for discretionary time and income which has resulted in people playing more golf and (not yet quantitatively supported) getting some number of non-golfers to try the game. That’s a great transition to our lead story where Stuart Lindsay outlines that we’ve had the technology to answer the question of who all these golfers are, it’s just that few courses and their technology providers are actually doing this type tracking, analysis and relationship-building. Contrary to Kevin Costner’s famous statement, “We built it and (yet) no one comes.” For Stuart’s blueprint and instruction manual on what we should collectively be doing to help our own cause, go here:
August Pellucid Perspective
In addition, our August edutainment features the following topics and perspectives:
- Speaking of now being the time to kick player development into high gear, Stuart keeps beating the drum on the fact that a “missing link” for Millennials, and any other investment risk-averse adult groups, is the absence of quality rental programs at each and every facility. He outlines how they can be self-liquidating and, if so, what objection remains for any operator to not have it be integral to their player development programs? As a “bonus track”, Stuart also offers some facts and advice on why operators’ credit card processing fees are going up due to COVID and what (or if) you should do about it.
- Publisher Jim Koppenhaver does a quasi-book review on Golf’s Holy War by Brett Cyrgalis using it to suggest that, like countless others, the author misses the mark on “the soul of the game” and redirects our readers to what’s being contested in the industry that will shape our future (hint, it’s not the eternal debate between intuitive or mechanical swing instruction which is one of 3 tenets proposed by Brett).
- Plus the monthly Industry Scorecard (the only integrated scorecard of multi-source performance indicators) including the July weather impact results (flat again) and June YtD Utilization (way up, double-digit rounds “bump” against flat weather). We also chart the monthly timeseries for the year of Golf Playable Hours and Utilization while our Market Focus this month highlights the updated Top 25 US Golf Markets Scorecard and who challenged San Diego for the title in ’19. Rounding out the issue, our Comings & Goings section catalogues, classifies and comments on 13 activities (slow month) hitting our radar in the past month with Transactions again outpacing Closures 7-3.
- As a reminder, Pellucid recently introduced our Cognilogic Foresight product, Golf Playable Hours/Capacity Rounds forecast 60 days out, which can be ordered here] at a one-time cost of $150. As we finalize our annual subscription access and pricing, for a limited time all one-time report fees will be credited back to subscriptions.
We recognize and thank our continuing sponsors; Troon Golf, GOLFNOW and KemperSports for their continued support of intelligent dialogue on key industry issues and health metrics tracking. 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, National Golf Consumer Franchise Health Scorecard and US Golf Supply on Sale report). 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 our ad partner options, contact Publisher Jim Koppenhaver (847.808.7651, jim@pellucidcorp.com).
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 (Join our email list) 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 which now offers annual subscriptions for <$2.5K (that’s a compelling value!). IGDB now powers Pellucid’s Golf Local Market Analyzer and the Top 25 US Golf Markets Scorecard and has added functionality to our project work like being able to tally and profile course closures within key US markets over time. For more information on our comprehensive database, updated quarterly and refreshed completely every 9 months (all 15K+ US courses), email support@theigdb.com.
