Hello golf stakeholders:
Labor Day is now in the rearview mirror and much of the north is experiencing what the weather gurus are calling a “false Fall” (unseasonably cool, unusually early, but not to last). That should be favorable for golf both in demand as well as helping the Superintendents keep things growing longer. Jim K. headlines this month discussing how golf supply size and shape has changed since the pandemic. While COVID has alleviated the need to “plow a course a day”, it’s still critical that we have the right mix of supply within markets and our tracking of transactions over time shows how the industry is finding its way there. Stuart Lindsay rebuts (and brings some facts to the table) a recent industry pundit’s article suggesting that, while performance measurement and benchmarking are sorely needed in golf, it’s not going to happen in our lifetime. Stuart outlines why we disagree or are going to die trying to make it a reality in our lifetime and how our Golf Market Research Center effort is making steady (albeit slow) progress against reducing the participation barriers (via automated data transfer) and actually getting the numbers right.
This month’s By-the-Numbers section tracks the critical Utilization Rate figure for July which was up a healthy 4 points and, even more interesting, was a 2nd consecutive month of that rare combination of Golf Playable Hours down/Rounds up. We’ve already compiled the August rounds “preview”, courtesy of our Golf Market Research Center (GMRC) subscribers, and it suggests that we’ll get a slight “up” on Utilization via a gain in rounds exceeding our +5% weather tailwind. 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).
We recognize and thank our sponsors; Troon Golf, GOLFNOW, KemperSports and Club Caddie for their continued support of intelligent dialogue on key industry issues and health metrics tracking. For all those service providers and suppliers to the golf industry out there with the latest-and-greatest to offer our industry thought-leaders audience, might we suggest considering joining our merry little band through our most popular/best value 12-month sponsorship program? Twelve-month sponsors also receive all Pellucid industry-standard reports (State of the Industry, Outside the Ropes and Monthly Weather Impact Tracking (Nat’l, Reg’l, Markets)). 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, may we 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 our ad partner options, contact Publisher Jim Koppenhaver (847) 612-6717, 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 (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 Course Database (IGDB) with partners Apparation LLC, Never-Search and GolfCourseRanking.com which now offers annual subscriptions for <$2.5K (that’s a compelling value!). IGDB powers Pellucid’s Golf Local Market Analyzer, the Top 25 US Golf Markets Scorecard and now the GMRC as the facility master-record “backbone” as well. For more information on our comprehensive database, updated quarterly and refreshed completely every 9 months (all 15K+ US courses), email support@theigdb.com.
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