First and foremost, we hope that all our readers had a relaxing, enjoyable and thankful Thanksgiving holiday break. Now…it’s back to work for the 12-month geographies as their counter-season ramps up and, for the northern folks, some pre-Christmas strategy and planning thinking for the ’26 season. This is the final issue for the year of OtR and historically I’ve used it to preview how the year will finish up on the 8 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) at the heart of our Golf Market Research Center initiative, now entering its 5th year (time flies). This visibility is only possible due to our small (but steadily growing) merry band of progressive owner/operators who participate by monthly providing “3 numbers” (Rounds, Golf Revenue, Peak WE GF) for their facility via the GMRC web-based portal which we then aggregate, standardize and incorporate weather impact to produce the scorecard for the month and Year-to-Date (YtD) periods at the national, select markets and Pellucid Facility types (Premium/Value/Price) levels.
In this issue, we’ll take a look at that portfolio aggregate through October and quantify where we’ll likely end up as an industry based on percent change vs. the same period Year Ago (YA). While there are still 2 months left to play, the fact that ~89% of rounds played are “in the books” nationally through October historically, means it would take a significant series of events to meaningfully move these numbers by year end:
- Let’s start with what (most of) you likely know – As reported, faithfully (over 20+ years) and benevolently (at no charge) by Golf Datatech, Public rounds September YtD are +0.6%. This unfortunately leaves us with a raft of related questions such as, “What’s the actual number, is that a record pace/level, did weather help, did it come due to discounted rates?” etc.
- What we and the GMRC participants know for the portfolio is that, through October, the performance scorecard reads 5 birdies, 2 pars and one bogey (interestingly, the latter being the one we have no control over, if you get my drift). Given that we set records on several of these KPIs in ’24, any “beat” in ’25 will be successive, new records. This, once again, represents a completely different message than the lone, publicly-available figure of “rounds up 1%” (that also renders AI queries on “US golf industry performance in 2025”, relying solely on public domain information, useless)
- While we continue to scale these initial 8 KPIs across a broader universe of facilities, markets and price types, we’re also working on the expansion metrics of average customer count, fair share of golfers, fair share of rounds, churn rates and size of retaineds, acquireds and defector customer groups along with contact information incidence for each group
From our unique perspective looking at the trend data post-COVID (yes, we also know the ’19-’24 figures courtesy of the GMRC subscribers both providing historical data from Day 1 as well as those who’ve been with us for the entire 4-yr journey thusfar), we can see that the current growth cycle is slowing and a plateau is nearing (timing however, unknown) but, candidly, we’ve had higher levels of growth for longer than I ever anticipated beyond the COVID spike in ’20-’21. For our subscribers, read on for the “full Monty”, for our spectators, you can join the World of Pellucid and start that journey (with this issue) 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 (including this issue for starters!)
- 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. 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) – In addition to an OtR subscription (hence, this issue), you’ll get the State of the Industry presentation along with the full suite of Performance Tracking reports and weather impact services (Cognilogic for historical Golf Playable Hours/Capacity Rds, Foresight for the 60-day forecast for your facility location for Capacity Rds and daily key weather forecast variables)
As always, samples of all our publications, reports and services are available on the Reports and Services pages of the Pellucid website. In closing, here’s wishing you and yours a blessed holiday season and prayers for peace both here in our country (between parties and personal opinions) as well as in the world for the upcoming year. I’ll be back post-Orlando with the January edition of OtR which will mark our 25th year of publication (wow!)…
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