Hello golf stakeholders:
Valentine’s Day is now behind us (anyone give their significant other a round of golf?) and it’s on to March with us in Chicago still awaiting winter with days consistently in the 40s here? Stuart and Jim successfully presented their 21st consecutive State of the Industry in Orlando and, like Disney, it was the happiest place on earth during that 90 minutes as they reported record Golf revenue, Rounds and Utilization for the ’23 season.
Publisher Jim K. headlines this month, after hearing multiple presentations at both GBC and the PGA Show about AI, explaining why golf’s path to leverage AI likely isn’t the breakneck speed that the presenters (and the general media coverage) insist. Yes, there are legit applications for golf course owner/operators and the industry in general and yes, we’ll get there but our historical technology lag vs. other industries and paucity of reliable data will have to be overcome first.
Contributing Editor Stuart Lindsay builds on one of his qualitative themes from the SoI in explaining that the easy revenue (and rounds) growth is likely behind us and continued growth will now turn to blocking & tackling issues like tee sheet in-fill as well as improving marketing skills and Customer Relationship Management. Changes in email marketing rules and automating targeted marketing routines will be key building blocks to be successful in winning the ’24 battle for golfers and rounds.
See below for the headlines to each of our recurring sections from the regional January weather impact map (ouch!) to Comings & Goings (back to our normal monthly flow/pattern). We’ve already compiled the January rounds “preview”, courtesy of our GMRC early-responders, and it suggests that Golf Revenue and Rounds followed that ugly weather downward, pretty much linearly (but that still produces flat Utilization, one of the reasons we created that measure). If you want to know those numbers on a regular basis, you can either participate in GMRC (course operators) or sign up for a Publications Membership (everyone else).
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 discussion and healthy debate.
We also continue to spread the word on Pellucid’s next-generation golf course database. The Internet Golf Database (IGDB), provided by Apparation LLC, is the industry’s most complete, accurate, accessible and useful golf industry directory. IGDB, along with Pellucid’s proprietary extensions, powers Pellucid’s Golf Local Market Analyzer, the Top 25 US Golf Markets Scorecard and the GMRC. For more information on high-value IGDB subscriptions options, contact Apparation at mike.dickoff@apparationllc.com.
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