In recent conversation with information & insights colleague Sara Killeen of Longitudes Group, she mentioned in passing a conversation from one of the owner/operators they had interviewed over the summer as part of a research project. She relayed that the owner was conflicted over the fact that he had two different consumer groups and he wasn’t sure which one to “favor” and how that might affect the “non-favored” golfer group. In one camp were the new faces to golf which were younger, more diverse and wanted a more freestyle, “rowdy” golf experience. I don’t think I have to describe for our readers those in the other, more traditional camp.
That made me think back to what I call the “Snowboarders Dilemma” which the ski industry faced decades ago. Snowboarding gave their mountain a more “hip” vibe and that was getting younger, more free-spirited (and flexible-boned) customers which were incremental revenue in lifts, F&B and equipment. The traditional skiers (like me and colleague Stuart Lindsay who actually was a ski instructor for a period in his younger life) weren’t quite so “hip” on the idea of these folks whizzing by us at higher speeds or higher altitudes on the slope. Skiing figured it out to their advantage and golf should aspire to as well creating an environment and opportunities to accommodate both:
- Let’s revisit Pellucid’s hypothesis on the new golfers we’ve attracted and which groups contributed to the 60M incremental rounds from ’19 to ’20 courtesy of COVID
- Facilities probably have better tools at their disposable, Customer Franchise Analysis, which would give them better insights into understanding the quantity, engagement (rounds per year), economic value and demographics of these new bloods. Pair that with having their email addresses and you’ve got the trifecta for building lasting relationships with these folks (unfortunately few PoS providers are enabling this exercise and even fewer operators are demanding it)
- Smart operators will embrace the “bifurcation of golf” on multiple dimensions (different approaches to their 4-5 hrs on the course as well as continuing to beat the drum for “relaxed rules” while maintaining essential etiquette like not talking during another person’s set up or shot etc.). Just when the USGA folks thought they had a monopoly on bifurcation, now there’s even more breaks with tradition to consider
By the end of our conversation, Sara and I had agreed that the either/or question or approach to the current dilemma being considered by this operator wasn’t the optimal answer. The answer is “Figure out how to appeal to both and let them each have the playing experience they want while at your course.” While that’s likely challenging if the conflict is 100+DB music coming from one particular cart 4 fairways over or what exactly constitutes “appropriate attire” for golf, just like our friends in Washington are having to figure out, there’s always middle ground that either accommodates both parties or represents both being equally unhappy, but satisfied with the outcome.
I can’t leave the Executive Summary without one last plug for our soon-expiring Fall Promo for subscribers to our Golf Market Research Center performance tracking program. While you can no longer be a Charter Member, the Fall Promo runs until 11/1 (fear not, we’re not going to turn anyone away on 11/2 or 11/3 but beyond that you take your chances) and you could jump on and immediately start seeing your individual facility’s results through our Monthly Trend and KPI Scorecard reports for October month and Year-to-Date. In addition, each subscriber gets the month-end summary numbers for the GMRC portfolio as a whole and what I’m calling “market collections” (14 markets currently represented) until we have enough participants to sample balance, do projections and call them “market benchmarks”. Here are the Fall Promo details:
- GMRC web portal tool access (unlimited, annual)
- Market Profile (from our proprietary Golf Local Market Analyzer)
- Monthly Trend report (monthly Rounds & % Utilization for any months ’19-’21 for which you’ve entered rounds in the portal
- KPI Scorecard (7 measure, single page KPI results, any month and YtD for which data has been entered)
- Cognilogic Weather Impact: Historical facility-specific Golf Playable Hours & Capacity Rounds, accessible daily via web portal
- Cognilogic Foresight: 60 day forecast of Capacity Rounds including comparison to prior year, the 10-year norm and select forecast facts (i.e. hi/lo temp, precipitation amount etc.), accessible daily via web portal
- Three ways to get more information on the program or just sign up!
- By reading the 2-pg program summary or
- By viewing the 18 minute webinar demo by yours truly (you have to register to view the video, don’t worry, you’re not signing up for anything, we just want to know who’s viewing our content as the quid pro quo)
- If you’d like to “test drive” it by putting in your ’19-’21 monthly figures, we’ll let you do that for 2 weeks, just email me to get registered & access
- Subscribe to the Golf Market Research Center (GMRC)