Greetings golf stakeholders:
First, Merry Christmas to our readers and Happy Holidays to those of different faiths. By the time you get this, we’ll be down to 8 shopping days until Christmas and many of you in these northern climes have already retreated to warmer surrounds for the winter. I’ve got to say that I think this is in the Top 5 of Perspectives for content spearheaded by our lead story this month which weighs in on the GolfNow acquisition of EZLinks/TeeOff.com. Contributing Editor Stuart Lindsay takes an initial, circumspect view of how the Point-of-Sale (PoS) providers and platforms have shifted over time up to this significant event and what may come to pass in the post GolfNow/EZLinks tie-up. We’re not yet jumping to presumptive conclusions about whether this will ultimately be good or bad for the average operator but it will change the consumer-facing dynamic and will be a force to be reckoned with among the PoS providers’ competitive set. For Stuart’s always informative and usually amusing take, click here:
Dcember Perspective
In addition, our December pre-Christmas gift to you and the industry at large includes the following “toys”:
- Contributing Writer Harvey Silverman offers a preview of the work to be published shortly by the NGCOA on the history of online tee times, the number of providers that have come and gone, what we can learn from this forum of failures and, of course, how barter has contributed to both success and failure along the way
- Publisher Jim Koppenhaver risks the ire of our more liberal-minded readers by making a comparison between increasingly subsidizied municipal golf in some locations and the Medicare-for-All concept and economics. Using real examples and numbers from a portfolio of 5 municipal Ohio golf courses, (provided by a longtime Pellucid supporter), he goes through how much red ink they’re bleeding and asks at what point do the subsidies drive currently successful, privately-owned golf courses under and is that a net good or bad for the local golf market?
- Plus the monthly Industry Scorecard (the only integrated scorecard of multi-source performance indicators) including the November weather impact results and October YtD Utilization. We also chart the monthly timeseries for the year of Golf Playable Hours and Utilization while our Market Focus spotlight of the Top 25 US Golf Markets falls on Seattle, WA the 8th healthiest market by our proprietary, multi-dimensional scorecard. Rounding out the issue, our Comings & Goings section catalogues, classifies and comments on 17 (down from 45 last month) activities during the past month reflective of the holiday doldrums where the easy “quit” decisions have already been made and the other “I think I should quit” decisions now likely being deferred until after Orlando.
We recognize and thank our continuing sponsors; Troon Golf, EZLinks/Teeoff.com and KemperSports. 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 (www.pellucidcorp.com/news/elist) 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 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.