Hello golf stakeholders:
Are you ready for some…golf TV? While not as ubiquitous as the Fall messaging for the now underway NFL season, all eyes even partially interested in golf will turn to the upcoming Ryder Cup matches at the end of this month. It should be exciting golf and stories will emerge around actual golf vs. the run-up narratives on ticket prices, selection choices and, of course, who has the better apparel. For those of us in the less-sexy (but higher revenue contribution) golf operations sector of the industry, we’ll be watching the month’s results in revenue and rounds and thinking about the shoulder season ahead for many geographies.
Contributing Editor Stuart Lindsay leads this month continuing to track with interest the customer counts for our client courses and what we’re seeing as a flattening of the upward trend in golfers we’ve experienced since COVID. The growing consumer base has been a key contributor to the current growth cycle for revenue and rounds so he explores the ’26 challenge of how to continue extending revenue growth when one of the levers moves to neutral (we don’t know if the golf count results represent a plateau or peak; we’ll optimistically opine the former vs. latter).
Publisher Jim K. addresses the opening paragraph thought of what September will tell us about the success of the ’25 season (Year-to-Date it represents 80% of national rounds played historically so will be hard to move the figures meaningfully in Q4) and how it can inform early planning for ’26 (pricing, demand growth etc.). In addition, Pellucid’s clients have access to the ’26 full-year Golf Playable Hours/Capacity Rounds forecast via our AccuWeather partnership so that’s also a component. Using 6 KPIs and their sequencing, he outlines one approach to “penciling in” a plan for the upcoming year.
See below for the headlines to each of our recurring sections from the regional August weather impact (up! needed that) to By-the-Numbers which provides the July and Year-to-Date results for Rounds (up) and Utilization (also up). We’ve already compiled the August golf operations performance scorecard “preview”, courtesy of our Golf Market Research Center (GMRC) early-responders, and the sneak peek suggests that Rounds will follow weather upward and likely slightly exceed it producing another month of Utilization gain. 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.
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