Dear Golf Industry Professional:
To the surprise and chagrin of those in the industry who attempt to paint us as the “eternal pessimists,” this month we headline with Contributing Editor Stuart Lindsay’s article highlighting “success-in-numbers” in the Phoenix market as the Q1 results of a subset of courses, mapped through the metrics of ORCA for rounds/revenue/rate and incorporating Pellucid’s weather impact show us that they’re having success in reversing the “assault on rate” which has plagued the industry. A couple more articles like this and we’re going to have to crown Stuart the King of Optimism (uh, OK, maybe not but I think he and Jim would settle for the Reality Kings moniker). Click below to follow his play-by-play of the Phoenix ORCA/Pellucid Q1 analysis:
In addition, the May issue covers the following topics in our inimitable “edutainment” style:
· Publisher Jim Koppenhaver gives back any trade association brownie points he may have accumulated in the past 12 months with his cryptic commentary on the 2019 industry navel-gazing on display in a recent State of the Industry roundtable reported on in Forbes magazine by….the NGF Editorial Director (rainbows & moonbeams)
· Contributing Writer Harvey Silverman looks into the curiouser and curiouser world of TeeSnap and parent Allegiant Airlines when it comes to reporting their golf industry penetration and footprint and the question of “When could fudged numbers in public accounting come back and bite you in the butt?” While the SEC is too busy playing with Elon Musk to likely take notice, for those of us following in the golf industry the latest exploits and story-telling are approaching la-la-land
· Plus the monthly Industry Scorecard (the only integrated scorecard of multi-source performance indicators) including the April weather impact results (up again) and the March YtD Utilization (down, no rounds bump from better March weather?). We also chart the monthly timeseries for the year of Golf Playable Hours and Utilization while our Market Focus starts at the top of our recently-updated Top 25 scorecard with the 2nd healthiest major US golf market, Los Angeles CA. Rounding out the issue, our Comings & Goings section catalogues, classifies and comments on 10 activities during the past month and the continuing trends of MCOs acquiring small regionals and the golfertainment space continuing to attract new players (competitors, not golfers unfortunately) and formats
We recognize and thank our continuing sponsors; KemperSports, Troon Golf and EZLinks Golf. 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 and National Golf Consumer Franchise Health Scorecard). 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 are interested in a preview of 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. 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. While no database will ever be 100% accurate, we continue to be surprised at the quantity and range of inconsistencies in course directories out there as well as the fact that most of the major tee time providers and recommendation sites (like GolfAdvisor) are propagating these phantom facilities and errors 5-10 fold for people doing Google searches online. Talk about an “echo chamber”… For more information on our comprehensive database, updated quarterly and refreshed completely every 9 months (all 15K+ US courses), contact Jim Koppenhaver.
