The Pellucid Perspective - April 2017 - 2
GOLF INDUSTRY
HEALTH
Politics has no monopoly on fake news
"I would make the argument it's the best of times right now." Steve Mona,
CEO World Golf Foundation
By Jim Koppenhaver
J
ust to prove that "fake news" isn't restricted to national politics and what seems to be today's incessant war between
Republicans and Democrats, the above quote closed a recent CNBC interview that was forwarded to me by a few dozen
people. Some of the inbound Subject lines were as humorous as
the article itself; my favorite was "Golf 's new narrative?" (Shows
that our audience, in addition to being passionate about the industry and its health, also has a sense of humor). It appears that
somewhere in the recesses of golf industry pooh-bah-ism there
was a decision to launch a pre-emptive "charm offensive" in advance of The Masters as this story and various iterations popped
up in what I counted as at least 5 different places during the previous 2 weeks.
I know that somewhere Tim Finchem is likely smiling as this
type of strategic PR was one of his hallmarks in my few encounters with him and in watching the Golf 20/20 event unfold and
evolve firsthand. In my mind, the plan goes like this. We know
that annually as The Masters opens the official "golf season" that
all the mainstream media folks go hunting for a golf story to appear relevant to our sport for a week. That sends them to both
the industry mainstays (NGF, WGF and any other organization
that ends with "F") which say, "Here are all the things that can
even be construed as (potentially) positive" and to Pellucid, which
generally says, "Here are the key metrics of the industry and comparisons to prior year and the 5-year average which are a mix of
neutral to negative." In fairness, the writers are always looking for
the provocative angle and that Pulitzer prize-winning headline
so we inevitably get the well-worn "How golf found the rough"
or something equally creative vs. the more accurate and nuanced,
"Golf moving sideways, seeks next growth catalyst." I'll also confess that I've contributed my share in giving them fodder to take
the easy way out and write the negative headline.
But a funny thing happened this year; nobody in the mainstream media called or wrote any drive-by shootings articles
about golf in the streams that I follow (or our followers forward which is a pretty wide net). Either they ran out of creative
headlines and ways to tell the same story of the past 5+ years or
someone decided that the health of the golf industry was no longer relevant to enough people to cover as an integral part of The
Masters season. Meanwhile, back in the initial months of the
year, some group of folks in PGA TOUR/WGF land must have
gathered and said, "Instead of letting the media drive the story on
industry health this year, let's put out a series of communications
outlining the most positive facts we can muster and get that out
through sympathetic channels to offset the annual negative (but
fact-based) news." And with that, a bad idea was born.
For those of you who missed it, here is the essence of this year's
2 The Pellucid PersPecTive
narrative as channeled by the WGF:
* People are engaging in the game in different ways - more
than 4 million people experienced golf through a driving range or
simulator last year. (Note, TopGolf claims in '16 to have had 14M
visitors (doesn't say if global or US) across 31 locations so this is
basically "drafting" off TopGolf plus the number of range-only
golfers reported by our friends at the NGF which was 4M back
in '11). Seems like they significantly missed this to the low side
because you ought to be able to count at least 4-5M unique visitors to TopGolf + 4M range-only visitors should put this north
of 5M in my math.
* Participation in the game is stabilizing - This is being driven
by the NGF narrative that the 2.5% drop in participation in '15
(from 24.7 to 24.1M) is within sampling error (which they outline as +/-4%) therefore it's not meaningful. The accurate description of this is "the decline rate is shallowing" (which we don't
see in our independent study of the NSGA data, the '15 decline
was right on the 5 year average, not worse but not better). This
would probably not pass the "truth in advertising" standards but
there's little oversight or rigor in media coverage in today's world
so it's pretty much whatever you can say and get away with.
* Over the last decade, $3B has been invested in renovating
~1,000 courses - This is positioned as a sign of health that the
industry can raise the money to update its infrastructure. While
that's more than can be said about the US roadway infrastructure
which no one seems to want to fund, the fact is that monthly we
get dragged into conversations by facilities that are losing money
due to......debt obligations from renovations undertaken in the
last decade. The majority of that "positive" investment has financially crippled the individual operator and municipalities, oops.
* Rounds have been up the last two years - As Pellucid has
documented in our State of the Industry presentations, Utilization has basically flatlined as rounds followed weather for the past
4-5 years. Our "two year up" has been the result of 2 years where
Available Rounds have been up and above the 10-year norm by
3% each year. This is weather favorability, not industry health in
generating demand (but I'm not complaining about the positive
variance, just understand the cause).
The other dialogue, in a Steve Mona opinion article in the
March issue of Golf Business, is that the core industry metrics
of participants, rounds played and facility opening/closings "don't
tell the complete picture of golf 's vitality." Just to offer a slight
correction, the core metrics we should be following are:
* Total industry revenue (Facilities, equipment for starters)
* Revenue-per-Available Round
* % Utilization
* Velocity (rounds per 18-hole equivalent)
April 2017
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Pellucid Perspective - April 2017
TOC
Politics has no monopoly on fake news
Town’s oil boom gushing new golf
New internet privacy rules - same as the old rules
Golf weather impact: March weather delivers the “Nuclear Option”
At least D.C. can run golf courses
Trolling for Millennials
The Pellucid Perspective - April 2017 - TOC
The Pellucid Perspective - April 2017 - Politics has no monopoly on fake news
The Pellucid Perspective - April 2017 - 3
The Pellucid Perspective - April 2017 - 4
The Pellucid Perspective - April 2017 - Town’s oil boom gushing new golf
The Pellucid Perspective - April 2017 - 6
The Pellucid Perspective - April 2017 - New internet privacy rules - same as the old rules
The Pellucid Perspective - April 2017 - 8
The Pellucid Perspective - April 2017 - 9
The Pellucid Perspective - April 2017 - Golf weather impact: March weather delivers the “Nuclear Option”
The Pellucid Perspective - April 2017 - 11
The Pellucid Perspective - April 2017 - 12
The Pellucid Perspective - April 2017 - At least D.C. can run golf courses
The Pellucid Perspective - April 2017 - 14
The Pellucid Perspective - April 2017 - Trolling for Millennials
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