’22 State of the Industry: Weather Impact Was Abnormally Unfavorable
Continuing our select release of interesting facts from the 20th edition of our definitive State of the Industry assessment, weather impact in ’22 didn’t just trail ’21, it was record-level poor. The below extract from our 75-slide numbers-fest, which was delivered by Jim Koppenhaver and Stuart Lindsay during the PGA Show in January, shows how ’22 stacked up in Golf Playable Hours (GPH) vs. the past 10 years:
· It continued the “downward drift” of the last 5 years among the most recent 10
· It was the lowest GPH figure nationally since we began tracking in ’04 (you’ll get the unredacted chart in the SoI) and the first sub-2,000 GPH year we’ve recorded
The silver lining in this is that, despite this extremely unfavorable climate backdrop, the industry only shed 4% of its rounds compared to ‘21. That means “true demand” for golf (as measured by % Utilization) rose in spite of what Mother Nature threw at us. For more details on weather impact (the 45 regions, the Top 25 US Golf Markets and the ’23 GPH forecast (could it either repeat or be worse?), you’ll find it in the full SoI which is now available for purchase from Pellucid one of three ways:
- Purchase a Pellucid Publications Membership, $495 annual; includes:
- ’22 State of the Industry (75 .ppt charts, access to web video presentation)
- Monthly Nat’l/Reg’l/Mkts weather impact tracker
- Monthly Outside the Ropes digital newsletter
- National Golf Consumer Franchise Scorecard (size/change/demographics)
- Subscribe to the Golf Market Research Center (facility owner/operators/MCOs), $500 annual per facility; includes:
- Local Market Snapshot (golfers, supply/demand balance, velocity etc.)
- Monthly trend comparative graphs for Rounds & Utilization
- Current month and Year-to-Date Key Performance Indicators Scorecard
- Access to facility-specific Cognilogic (historical) and Foresight (60-day forecast) web reports
- ’22 State of the Industry (75 .ppt charts, access to web video presentation)
- Purchase ’22 State of the Industry report, $275; includes:
- 75 .ppt charts
- Access to 90-minute web video presentation via web
Being able to quantify weather impact from national down to facility level is a unique Pellucid capability used by multiple industry stakeholders ranging from private equity firms to MCOs as well as multiple industry trade organizations. Last year emphatically proved Stuart Lindsay’s persistent assertion that “You cannot have an intelligent discussion about golf course (or industry) performance without incorporating weather impact.” For ’22 nationally, that meant recognizing that we did significantly better than the rounds number alone would suggest and the fact that we’ll get “weather upside” in ’23 using the 10-year Normal as guidance.
