The Pellucid Perspective - October 2017 - 12

INDUSTRY
SCORECARD

Jim Koppenhaver comments, "Following Harvey's South
Texas havoc on golf, September featured Irma's lashing of the
key golf state of Florida which is only partially factored into
the September weather results as we don't have a rules-based,
automated way to determine residual damage and closures to
golf courses in the affected area. We did register a 6% decline
year-over-year for the month but anyone who watched the
news or was unfortunate enough to be in the area impacted
knows that the golf impact in those markets was much more.
Offsetting that, the SE Coast is having a terrific comparable
weather year and the Great Lakes was the recipient of extremely
favorable and extended warm temperatures for much of September. Whether that offers any competition to the collegiate
football season openers and the Big 10 following remains to be
seen when Golf Datatech publishes their rounds figures next

Rounds by Facility Type Aug 2017
All Fac.
Types

Public
Access

Private

month. (I'm going to bet against a comparable uptick in rounds
based on colleague Stuart Lindsay's "golfers are more like bears
than squirrels" theorem). At the market level, we continue to
largely track to weather with 40 of 61 markets registering neutral Utilization but, of the non-neutral markets there continue
to be more "laggards" than "leaders". The rounds/weather correlation however gives us continued confidence that facilities in
over half the markets could use the full year forecast as a proxy
for demand over the balance of the year (hint, hint). Among
Pellucid's Top 25 US Golf Markets for the YtD period, in the
positive Utilization column only Miami (#14, ironically after
Irma's visit) is posting a gain as they're holding rounds against
unfavorable weather while Minneapolis (#22) retains the crown
of largest laggard with the double-whammy of rounds down
n
against favorable weather."

n Curr Month
n Curr YtD

5.0% ___________________________________________
4.4%
4.0% ___________________________________________
3.0% ___________________________________________
2.0% ___________________________________________
0.9%
0.8%
1.0% ___________________________________________
0.0% ___________________________________________
-0.2%
-1.0% ___________________________________________
___________________________________________
-2.0%
-3.0%
-2.6%
-3.5%
-4.0%

Looking at demand for the current month, rounds were up 1%
vs. Year Ago (YA), again driven by a big gain in the Private sector of 4% this month. For the Year-to-Date (YtD) period, the
slight August gain didn't help our cause meaningfully due to the
7 months of previous history weighing against it, and remains
at -3%. The YtD decline continues to be exclusive to the Public
sector which is off 4%, while the Private sector strengthened for
the 3rd month in a row, nudging it up to +1% now. For those
really paying attention, Datatech made an adjustment here from
last month's YtD figure which was +2% and we questioned how it
jumped that much in one month; the answer is "it didn't" but this
seems to be the more mathematically feasible answer now.

For reference, Utilization and Point Change vs. Year Ago (YA)
tracks rounds demand after factoring for weather. The comparative benchmark is the Year End (YE) '16 value (52%). For
those not familiar with Pellucid's Weather Impact tracking, the
underlying concept is relatively simple. In a theoretical world
of rounds following weather, a 5% increase in Available Rounds
would produce a 5% gain in Played Rounds. By comparing
Played Rounds to Available Rounds, we can determine the Utilization of the average facility and how it's changing during the
year vs. the benchmark.
The first set of bars at right show that August posted a Utilization rate of ~51%, which was a 1 point decline vs. the YE
'16 value (got the "weather up slightly, rounds up marginally"
scenario in August). The second set of bars show the Yearto-Date (YtD) results with Utilization continuing to clock in
at 50% which is also a 2 point deficit vs. the benchmark (so it
didn't get meaningfully worse). The net of the monthly upsand-downs through August says that sagging rounds demand
isn't a result of weather, which has been basically neutral to last
year. This would point us to the continuing consumer challenge

of "inciting" rounds demand against the backdrop of neutral or
favorable weather. Eventually all this discounting and multichannel marketing has to kick in to provide the much-heralded
incrementality of all these programs and platforms, right? Oh
wait, we forgot, it's the TopGolf effect that's going to kickstart
rounds demand, that's the ticket.

Source: GDT/NGCOA/NGF alliance

12 The Pellucid PersPecTive

Utilization & Point Change Jul 2017
n %Utilization
Curr. Month

n Pt. Chng vs. FY '16
YtD

60.0% ______________________________________- 0.0
50.9%
50.0%
- -0.2
50.0% ______________________________________
- -0.4
40.0% ______________________________________- -0.6
- -0.8
-0.7
30.0% ______________________________________
- -1.0
20.0% ______________________________________- -1.2
- -1.4
10.0% ______________________________________- -1.6
-1.6
0.0% ______________________________________- -1.8
Source: GDT/NGCOA/NGF alliance; Pellucid

October 2017

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