The Pellucid Perspective - March 2018 - 12

INDUSTRY
SCORECARD

we had a significant decline at the national level in Available
Rounds but fairly balanced regional breadth so it means the
"down" regions were down significantly more than the "up" regions were up. Looking at the map, the West Coast and Desert SW were the "places to be" weather-wise through February
while the SE Coast, Florida, Gulf Coast and Texas geographies
all are deeply in the red. The good news was in the January Utilization where rounds declined only moderately against pretty
bleak weather results. Looking at January results for the YtD
Utilization at the 61 markets level, we had significantly favorable breadth which again means that the down markets were

Rounds by Facility Type Jan 2018
All Fac.
Types

Public
Access

Private

0.0% ___________________________________________
-1.0% ___________________________________________
-2.0% ___________________________________________
-3.0% ___________________________________________
-4.0% ___________________________________________
-4.5% -4.5%
-5.0% ___________________________________________
-5.4% -5.4%

-6.0% ___________________________________________
-7.0% ___________________________________________

some combination of "down more" as well as likely being higher
rounds contribution markets. (Recall that we weight the results
by the number of annual rounds contributed by each market).
Among Pellucid's Top 25 US Golf Markets for the YtD period
(those which are in-season), only 3 had Utilization declines, led
by Miami (#14) which lost 8 points. (Like the stock market,
last year they were the highest Utilization gainer for the year,
what happened?). Again, if you want to know the other two
Utilization losers or how far up the advancing markets were,
just go to our website and get on the Monthly Weather Impact
subscription."
n

n Curr Month
n Curr YtD

Looking at demand for January, rounds were down 5% vs. Year
Ago (YA), not surprising given our previous report of Golf Playable Hours being down double-digits for the month. January's
decline was predominately powered by the Private sector's 8%
drop but Public also contributed, registering a 5% drop as well.
For the Year-to-Date (YtD) period, the figures are the same since
we only have one month of reporting thus far. The good news is
that we didn't see a steeper drop and it's only one month's results
with 11 more to go, so we'll avoid the premature commentary of
"SAD!" and wait to see what the balance of Q1 looks like.

-8.0% ___________________________________________
-8.1% -8.1%
-9.0% ___________________________________________

Source: GDT/NGCOA/NGF alliance

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) '17 value of 51%. 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 above show that January posted a Utilization rate of ~73% which was 21 points better than the YE '17
value. (This month we got the "rounds down but not as much
as weather" scenario). The second set of bars show the Year-toDate (YtD) results, which are the same since we only have one
month of reporting in '18. The silver lining in the poor weather/
rounds down report is that we managed to not lose as many
rounds as the weather performance threatened to take away.

Utilization & Point Change Jan 2018
n %Utilization
Curr. Month

n Pt. Chng vs. FY '17
YtD

21.3
21.3
- 22.0
80.0% ______________________________________
72.9%

7 2.9%

60.0% ______________________________________- 16.5

40.0% ______________________________________- 11.0

20.0% ______________________________________-

5.5

0.0% ______________________________________-

0.0

Source: GDT/NGCOA/NGF alliance; Pellucid

12 The Pellucid PersPecTive

March 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Pellucid Perspective - March 2018