Greetings golf stakeholders:
With the Labor Day holiday weekend behind us, summer, as anyone on the school calendar knows it, is now officially over and it’s back to the busier calendar for both weekdays and weekends. Despite that, we’re thinking we’ll see a relatively strong August for demand when Golf Datatech releases those figures next month. Along those lines, our lead story this month from Publisher Jim Koppenhaver is looking at how, at least for rounds demand, the golf industry has gotten the V-shaped recovery that economists were (wishfully) hoping for in the general economy. He recaps the rebound by month and looks into his crystal ball for the balance of the year on both rounds (will likely beat ’19 when December ends) and revenue (won’t be quite as kind to the majority of operators). For an uncharacteristically upbeat analysis (but, as always, supported by facts), go here:
September Pellucid Perspective
In addition, our September “romp” through the industry trends and numbers features the following topics and perspectives:
- Contributing Editor Stuart Lindsay outlines his case that the challenge of golf as “a game” is what intrigues people, makes them come back and, for some number, want to compete and get better. The beauty of golf is, due to match play and the handicap system, you can still be mediocre like Jim and enjoy the challenge of “the game”. Stuart touches on the fact that there’s no “handicapping” for games like chess and backgammon but they’re still popular and have survived the test of time
- Stuart also weighs in briefly on Tiger’s potential role in proving that golf can be an equal-opportunity sport and open to more diversity and inclusion. He cites Arthur Ashe as having forged a similar path for tennis in a much more “closed-minded” time and against even higher obstacles including a vintage photo of he and Arthur on the same court (Arthur was playing while Stuart was the (much younger) ballboy in the background)
- Plus the monthly Industry Scorecard (the only integrated scorecard of multi-source performance indicators) including the August weather impact results (slight dip) and July YtD Utilization (way up again, double-digit rounds “bump” against flat weather). We also chart the monthly timeseries for the year of Golf Playable Hours and Utilization while our Market Focus this month kicks off the updated Top 25 list, starting at the bottom this time with St. Louis, MO coming in at the 25th spot being edged out by Pittsburgh for #24. Rounding out the issue, our Comings & Goings section catalogues, classifies and comments on 13 activities (slow month) hitting our radar in the past month evenly spread between Transactions, Closures and Openings (with 1 Auction making the 13 total)
- As a reminder, Pellucid recently introduced our Cognilogic Foresight product, Golf Playable Hours/Capacity Rounds forecast 60 days out, which can be purchased at a one-time cost of $150. As we finalize our annual subscription access and pricing, for a limited time all one-time report fees will be credited back to subscriptions.
We recognize and thank our continuing sponsors; Troon Golf, GOLFNOW and KemperSports 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 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, National Golf Consumer Franchise Health Scorecard and US Golf Supply on Sale report). 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 our ad partner options, contact Publisher Jim Koppenhaver (847.808.7651, 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 (Join our email list) to join the conversation, discussion and 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 now powers Pellucid’s Golf Local Market Analyzer and the Top 25 US Golf Markets Scorecard and has added functionality to our project work like being able to tally and profile course closures within key US markets over time.
For more information on our comprehensive database, updated quarterly and refreshed completely every 9 months (all 15K+ US courses), email support@theigdb.com.
