The Pellucid Perspective
Dear Golf Industry Professional:
The fourth and final major of the year is now in the books and the world waits breathlessly(?)…for the FedEx Cup (to remove all minor irritants from the football season). The northern climates are now in full stride for the final month of the “core season” and all facilities are competing with the late summer, final family vacation for discretionary time leading up to Labor Day. There’s still plenty of golf to be played though so don’t stop that marketing machine just yet if you’re an owner/operator out there in the trenches. This month’s lead story calls attention to the slow and cantankerous unwinding of the real estate golf boom as a number of the “centerpiece” facilities for real estate developments in the ’90s are now being considered for best-and-highest use which is being contested by subdivision homeowners and residents of communities adjacent to the distressed golf properties. In the stand-off, it appears for the moment that the developers have the upper hand because they can declare the property “not economically viable” (usually true) and then just let it go to seed and wait out the homeowners’ as the situation depresses their resale value and stymies buyers due to the vacant real estate situation uncertainty. For Jim K’s take, read the current issue: August Pellucid Perspective. In addition, the August issue covers the following topics, none of which you’ll find in any other industry trade publication, guaranteed:
* Guest contributor, industry veteran and sage Craig Kessler of the Southern CA Golf Assoc., scratches his head along with the collective majority of the industry in asking, “What does the total number of municipal golf courses in operation have to do with the relative health of that sector?” He offers this up after NGF’s latest assertion that the fact that municipal golf is actually increasing in share of facilities means it’s in the pink of health. Craig wraps his opinion piece around the concept of getting an accurate but irrelevant answer by asking the wrong question.
* Contributing Editor Stuart Lindsay offers two observations in this month’s issue. The first around the fact that we can do a better job, as core golfers who are emotionally invested in the fun and camaraderie of (even when not played particularly well), of reaching out to those on the margin of the game and encouraging them to put more than a toe in the water. Ancillary to that is his article on the fact that the industry and various associations continue to make learning the game of golf to a basic level of enjoyment, much more complicated and harder than it needs to be and, hence, scare off the folks we’re supposed to be nurturing. It’s Manuel de la Torre vs. Tom Shea; two sides of the same coin which is helping people get better and enjoy the game without all the “good body crap” (Billy Bean/Brad Pitt, Moneyball)
* Editor-in-Chief Jim Dunlap is back from post-surgery in recovery and, with the experience of one back surgery behind him, has a respectful ode to Tiger Woods’ 2nd place PGA Championship finish after multiple back surgeries. Until you’ve walked a mile in someone’s shoes, you have no idea how hard, frustrating and fickle the recovery and re-learning process can be.
* Plus the monthly Industry Scorecard (the only integrated scorecard of multi-source performance indicators) including the July weather impact results (flat again) and the June YtD Utilization (up! rounds decline not as severe as weather deficit). We also chart the monthly timeseries for the year of Golf Playable Hours and Utilization while our Market Focus continues with the profile of Minneapolis MN as this month’s Market Focus which registers as the 22nd healthiest of the Top 25 US Golf Markets in our annual ranking.
We recognize and thank our continuing sponsors; KemperSports, Troon Golf, Bayer CropScience, EZLinks Golf and TurfKeeper as our newest advertiser. As a quick plug for TurfKeeper, it’s software and analysis which applies rigor to your maintenance practices and costs to run an even leaner and meaner operation while not sacrificing course conditioning quality. We’ve known Jeff Blunden for years and he’s the US market owner for this product which started overseas. They’ll be at the Crittenden fall conference, swing by and see them. 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 Editor-in-Chief Jim Dunlap (760-212-3714, jdgolfer@cox.net).
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 (http://www.pellucidcorp.com/news/elist) to join the conversation, discussion and debate.
We also want to bring to your attention Pellucid’s next generation golf course database, the Internet Golf Course Database (IGDB) with partners Apparation LLC, Never-Search and GolfCourseRanking.com. We’ve just completed a manual review of thousands of facilities against the industry’s legacy facility database provider and found hundreds of discrepancies in the existence of facilities (they’re missing quite a few of the Learning & Practice facilities across the US & they’re still carrying 100+ closed facilities), address errors and facility name errors.
While no database will ever be 100% accurate, we were surprised at the quantity and range of inconsistencies 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 12 months (all 15K+ US courses), contact jim@pellucidcorp.com.
As always, you can review and order any of Pellucid’s range of reports and services at www.pellucidcorp.com. From the numbers and details of how our industry’s consumer base is changing at the national level to our individual facility-level services including weather impact (Cognilogic) and market analysis (Golf Local Market Analysis), we’ll keep you one step ahead of the competition in this continuing challenging industry landscape.
