The Pellucid Perspective - November 2013 - (Page 8)

GOLF PARTICIPATION A new determinant on "weather" golfers play or not? Data indicates meteorology more important than time, money or difficulty By Stuart Lindsay Editor's Note: As pointed out by one of our informed readers, JC Resorts VP John McNair, there was an incorrect information table in the article on weather elasticity and its impact on participation in our October issue of the magazine. Because we feel that the article contains valuable information for facility owners and operators, we are re-running the article this month with the correction calculations. We apologize for the error and hope our readers find the revised data helpful. L ast month, we touched on the data that shows annual golf rounds demand has closely tracked weather variances in 2011, 2012 and so far in 2013. We also noted that this would seem to indicate that we had achieved some sort of equilibrium where weather was becoming more of a factor in determining rounds demand than discounting that is having little impact on raising the demand for golf. I didn't realize I was unleashing Pavlov's dogs and would end up in a byzantine mathematical analysis of golfers as creatures of habit. Annual Rounds # of Golfers % Total Total Rounds % Total 1 2,700,000 11.1% 2,700,000 0.5% 2 to 9 9,423,000 38.6% 51,826,500 10.5% 10 to 39 7,820,000 32.0% 191,590,000 38.9% 40 + 4,463,000 18.3% 246,803,900 50.1% 20.2 24,406,000 100.0% 492,920,400 100.0% If you look at the 2012 data on golfer population and frequency from our State of the Industry, we know the number of one time participants and rounds and then take the mid-point of the 2 - 9 round participants (5.5), the 10 - 39 group (24.5) and then subtract those rounds from our total to get rounds for the 40+ group; we can triangulate the number of rounds for the 40+ group (55.3). Short of having the median rounds for each of the groups (we'll try to get that number for the next SOI); the above num- bers are at least very instructive, especially if we look at them over time. As Jim Koppenhaver points out every year, new golfers don't go from 0 to 55 as fast as a Porsche and frequent golfers don't go from 55 to 0 as if they are braking for a deer (unless it's the occasional priest that gets hit by lightning). It turns out that there is a lot more fluid movement within and between The big problem is that the number of golfers in those groups is dwindling and we are becoming more dependent on a smaller group of "habitual" golfers to generate the bulk of golf demand - only 50% of all golfers were in those groups in 2012 compared to 57% in 1990 and 63% in 2000. these segments than we may have previously recognized and seems to show that we have not been very successful in retaining existing golfers let alone moving them up the frequency ladder as they age. The one constant for all these time periods is that the 10 - 39 and 40+ groups play about 90% of all golf rounds. The big problem is that the number of golfers in those groups is dwindling and we are becoming more dependent on a smaller group of "habitual" golfers to generate the bulk of golf demand - only 50% of all golfers were in those groups in 2012 compared to 57% in 1990 and 63% in 2000. The good news is that the remaining golfers in those groups are increasing their frequencies to maintain that 90% of demand threshold; but the bad news is that the 5 million golfers we have lost have actually ended up coming from the high participation and frequency groups. While we have pointed out for Annual Rounds # of Golfers 1990 % Total # of Golfers 2000 % Total # of Golfers 2005 % Total # of Golfers 2012 % Total 1 1,419,000 5.8% 2,506,000 8.5% 3,023,000 10.8% 2,700,000 11.1% 2 to 9 9,084,000 37.3% 8,385,000 28.5% 10,422,000 37.3% 9,423,000 38.6% 10 to 39 9,061,000 37.2% 12,000,000 40.7% 9,275,000 33.2% 7,820,000 32.0% 40 + 4,794,000 19.7% 6,580,000 22.3% 5,236,000 18.7% 4,463,000 18.3% 0.0 24,358,000 100.0% 29,471,000 100.0% 27,956,000 100.0% 24,406,000 100.0% 8 The Pellucid PersPecTive November 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Pellucid Perspective - November 2013

TOC
A silver lining in 2013: Golf's largest markets figure out how to beat the weather
What's wrong with this picture?
USGA approval of OnCore hollow core ball technology an interesting development
A new determinant on "weather" golfers play or not?
Golf's interests protected in TopGolf lease agreement
October golf weather impact: 4th consecutive month in positive territory
Orlando: Courses in golf's meeting mecca surviving
Edwin Watts Golf Shopes files for bankruptcy, Watts family hoping to regain control
Pace of play campaigns missing the point

The Pellucid Perspective - November 2013