Golf Weather Impact: Favorability Continues Into February
Following the ’23 forecast outlined in our ’22 State of the Industry, February delivered a 2nd consecutive month of favorability nationally with Golf Playable Hours (GPH) registering +14% vs. Year-Ago (YA). That brought the Year-to-Date (YtD) figure down slightly from January’s high plateau but still registering significantly up at +23% through two months. In an interesting pattern developing, there’s considerable dichotomy among regions’ results with regional breadth at 1:1 with 12 favorable regions vs. 11 unfavorables, 2 in the neutral zone (+/- 2%) and the remaining 20 regions being out-of-season. Subscribers to either the Pellucid Publications Membership or the Geographic Weather Impact report get the 45 regional breakdowns, the 61 markets figures, the day-of-week weather impact and the Year-End National GPH forecast figure as well as our full commentary on the results every month.
Played Rounds for January as published by Golf Datatech were up, following our previously-reported weather favorability, coming in at +7%. That however significantly trailed the January GPH favorability of +34% which produced a Utilization decline of 10 pts for the month (ouch, but it’s just one winter month). Those figures also represent the YtD results.
Jim Koppenhaver comments on the results, “The good news is that the early months of ’23 are following our forecast playbook but it’s really a “tale of two geographies” with TX and SE coastal seeing weather success while CA continues to suffer disproportionately so far. FL is a mixed bag and Phoenix is off modestly through Feb. Diving into the January YtD market-level Utilization leaders & laggards, Dallas & Orlando (both +6 pts) are atop the leader board through one month while Seattle (-19 pts), San Fran (-12 pts) and Phoenix (-8 pts) start at the bottom of the pack. We’ve done the “preview” compilation of our Golf Market Research Center (GMRC) subscribers results for Rounds, Golf Revenue and Rate Card and those figures show the portfolio’s rounds were also up double-digits for February so we at least followed, but likely will beat, the month’s weather favorability. Our GMRC subscribers already know their weather-adjusted February and YtD performance as well as the 60-day forecast for Capacity Rounds for their facility; you could too (hint, hint).”
Speaking of the GMRC and the ability for courses to see their monthly performance in comparative reports the day the month closes, we’re still offering a free 2-wk trial of the tool. We know from our visibility to the Golf Revenue numbers that courses are generally flush with cash (we’ve also seen all the public domain articles on renovations, massive CapEx spending etc. to corroborate) so we’d hazard a guess that the $500 investment decision isn’t being hampered by lack of funds. Program participants have been able to view graphic, single page monthly trend reports for Rounds and Utilization from ’19-’22 as well as having a 7 measure KPI single page report for any month and YtD period for which they entered data. The GMRC gives you visibility to your Market Profile and, after you enter your Rounds, Golf Revenue and Peak Season GF Rate by month, to immediately see your results through our comparative reports with integrated weather impact. So how do you “get in on the action”? Glad you asked…
- You can email jim@pellucidcorp.com, to subscribe (see below for benefits) and get started by inputting your information through December or if you’d like to engage in the 2-wk trial
- If you’d like more information you have two options:
- Watch the 18 minute GoToWebinar recording of the program overview and a demonstration of the portal and reports (fill in your name and email and it will open the video link; you’re not signing up for anything)
- Review the 2-pg program overview
- Read the recent Outside the Ropes that illustrates, using the GMRC portfolio’s May results, the insights available using real data
Here’s the details on what you get in the current promo deal:
- GMRC Market profile (golfers, supply/mix/demand balance, Utilization etc.)
- Monthly trends report (Rounds & Utilization, any month and YtD ’19-’21)
- KPI Scorecard (7 KPIs for month & YtD, single page, Year Ago comparisons)
- Cognilogic (historical facility-specific Golf Playable Hours and Capacity Rounds, normally sold as separate service at $180/yr) and
- Foresight (brand new, facility-level 60-day Capacity Rounds forecast and key weather variables used to produce it, normally sold separately at $360/yr)
- National Golf Consumer Franchise Scorecard and commentary outlining the change in the size of the golfer base, the demographics (not as much additional diversity as advertised by the industry but expanding) and involvement levels (sold separately for $199)
- We think this package of services including GMRC at $500/yr ($450 for NGCOA members) is a great value and timely for assessing your ’22 performance and how it compares to the COVID surge years of ’21 and ‘20
Final cherry-on-top, GMRC is a product in the NGCOA SmartBuy program so there’s a member benefit (10% discount) for the annual subscription.
