The Pellucid Perspective - April 2018 - 10

INDUSTRY
SCORECARD

is also available to Pellucid Publications members and Geographic Weather Impact report subscribers.
Jim Koppenhaver comments, "As I compiled the March Golf
Playable Hours (GPH) numbers across our 75 markets/regions,
it was evident early on that the roll-up wasn't going to be pretty.
Looking at the map, the few regions that had held their own
in weather through February flipped to either neutral or, in
more cases, to the negative. The Central CA Valley is still in
the green while South FL and Phoenix managed to remain flat
while everyone else is solidly "in the red." Looking at February YtD results for Utilization at the 61 markets level, we had

Rounds by Facility Type Feb 2018
All Fac.
Types

Public
Access

Private

0.0% ___________________________________________
-1.0% ___________________________________________
-2.0% ___________________________________________
-3.0% ___________________________________________
-4.0% ___________________________________________
-5.0% ___________________________________________
-6.0% ___________________________________________
-7.0% ___________________________________________
-6.9%

-7.2%

-8.0% ___________________________________________
-8.0% -8.0%
-9.0% ___________________________________________
-8.5%

favorable breadth with the majority of markets mimicking the
national pattern of weather down, rounds down less (not the
desired formula for Utilization gains but we'll take it). Among
Pellucid's Top 25 US Golf Markets for the YtD period (those
which are in-season), only 3 had Utilization declines led by Seattle (#11) which was the unusual combination of rounds up but
not in pace with really favorable weather. Again, if you want to
know the Top 25 Golf Markets which posted Utilization gains
and how much, just go to our website and get on the Monthly
Weather Impact subscription or sign up for Cognilogic (facility-level access via the web)," by clicking here.
n

n Curr Month
n Curr YtD

Looking at demand for February, rounds were down 9% vs. Year
Ago (YA), not surprising given our previous report of Golf Playable Hours being down double-digits for the month. February's
decline was predominately powered by the Public sector's 9%
drop but Private was following close behind, registering an 8%
drop as well. For the Year-to-Date (YtD) period, it's the same
storyline of All Facility rounds down 7% but slightly different
supporting facts with Private being the lead contributor at -8%
followed closely by the Public sector's decline of 7%. If all we had
to go by was Rounds demand, it would paint a pretty bleak picture through 2 months but fortunately you have Utilization (next
table), which tells a slightly more encouraging story.

-8.7%

-10.0% ___________________________________________

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
where rounds follow 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 February posted a Utilization rate of ~57% which was 5 points better than the YE '17
value (continuing our "rounds down but not as much as weather" storyline). The second set of bars show the Year-to-Date
(YtD) results, which are slightly more encouraging, registering
a 62% Utilization rate or ~10 points better than the '17 YE level.
In short, it's been an ugly opening two months for weather but
the silver lining is demand has not slumped entirely to meet
the poor weather. That would suggest that the fundamentals
through two months (golfer involvement and frequency) are
potentially still intact; we'll have to wait and see what Q2 Utilization tells us as the weather (hopefully) stabilizes.

10 The Pellucid PersPecTive

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

n Pt. Chng vs. FY '17
YtD

70.0% ______________________________________- 12.0
62.2%

10.6

60.0% ______________________________________- 10.0
56.9%
50.0% ______________________________________
______________________________________
40.0%

8.0

5.3
30.0% ______________________________________

6.0

20.0% ______________________________________

4.0

10.0% ______________________________________-

2.0

0.0% ______________________________________-

0.0

Source: GDT/NGCOA/NGF alliance; Pellucid

April 2018

https://www.pellucidcorp.com/reports

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