Where Do We Grow From Here?
In the November Perspective, I wrote an article headlined “We’ve had a great season, where are all the cheerleaders?” that I’m going to further support and explain here. One of my suggested hypothetical answers to the question is that the Five Families which generally take the mantle of advancing the game’s/industry’s interest don’t have any quantitative information, outside of public domain rounds played percent changes year-to-year, to analyze the impact of pandemic and endemic COVID on our sport.
I’ll admit that Pellucid is still miles away from having the breadth and depth of knowledge we’d like to have to understand golf’s success over the past 4 seasons (’19 being the pre-COVID baseline, ’20-’22 being the post-COVID party), but, rather than curse the darkness, we’ve assembled a “coalition of the willing” with our Golf Market Research Center participants which gives us a unique perspective on those 4 years across 7 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and the results are just shy of unbelievable. In this issue, I’ll take a look at the annual trajectory of those KPIs from ’19-22, October Year-to-Date, and what they tell us:
- What do the raw numbers (Golf Revenue, Rounds, Rate-per-Round; unadjusted for weather impact) tell us about the annual growth “steps” and the ’19-’22 span?
- What do the more important, weather-adjusted numbers (Capacity Rounds, % Utilization, Golf Revenue per Available Round (GRevpAR) tell us after factoring out weather? Is the story still great or simply good?
- What future forces will shape the ’23-’25 trajectory of golf? (continuing momentum, recession, work-from-home, player development/retention etc.)
For our subscribers, read on to get the supporting facts and insights. For everyone else, you can get the rest of the story one of three ways:
- Subscribe to the Pellucid Publications Membership for $495/yr (most comprehensive coverage & detail) – Annual subscribers get access to the following:
- Outside the Ropes monthly digital newsletter
- Annual State of the Industry report portfolio (PowerPoint presentation, PDF commentary report, access to Jim/Stuart video of presentation)
- Geographic Weather Impact Tracking (US, 45 regions, 61 markets) or Cognilogic for Golf Playable Hours/Capacity Rounds for individual facilities
- National Consumer Franchise Health Scorecard (expanded data and tables underlying this issue’s summary figures)
- Subscribe to OtR, 12 monthly issues for $250/yr (or you can opt for monthly payments of $25, annual term) with a money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied at any time during your subscription. Subscribers also get access to the historical archive of past issues (last two years) via the members-only section of the Pellucid website
- Subscribe to Golf Market Research Center (for operators wanting a combination of insights and action tools) – Here’s what’s included in the current “promo package” for either $500 annual or $450 for NGCOA members (or $45/mo or $41/mo respectively):
- Full suite of Performance Tracking reports – Market profile, comparative trends report and 7 KPI scorecard for any month and Year-to-Date for data provided by facility
- Facility-level Cognilogic historical weather impact portal/reports access, Golf Playable Hours & Capacity Rounds by day in current month, by months in current year and by day-of-week in current year with comparisons to Year Ago and the 10-Yr Norm
- Facility-level Foresight 60-day Capacity Rounds forecast, select forecast weather elements (hi/lo temp, daily precip etc.), variance to last year and long-term Normal. Not infallible but better than guessing or trying to collect all that yourself and organize it manually…
- Outside the Ropes monthly e-newsletter (consider this a sample of topics and treatments)
- State of the Industry Presentation, PowerPoint presentation slides of quantitative results and qualitative trends-to-watch as well access to 90-minute PGA Show presentation video
To learn more:
- Click here for 2-page program overview or
- Click here for 15-minute video demo (you do have to register to see video; don’t worry, you’re not signing up for anything)
- Click here to subscribe for a single facility
- Email me for multiple facilities or special situations
Anticipating that some of our readers will cop the common plea, “Jim, I don’t need to know about history, that’s past, what I’m interested in is what happens in the future”, I’ll take a closing swing at that but I’m equally intent on understanding the past, no matter the significant crowd which espouses “the past is past” theory that populates the golf industry in general and many owner/operators in specific. Let’s get started in understanding how good ’20-’22 has been at Pellucid’s national level projection with recognition and thanks to our GMRC participants who are fueling this and benefitting from the insights for their facilities’ performance each month.
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