The Pellucid Perspective - November 2017 - 2
GOLF
PARTICIPATION
WGF Strategic Goals for 2018:
Rapidly running out of time
By Jim Koppenhaver
P
oliticians learned long ago that you have to be careful
what you say both in making promises to your constituents and when responding to media questions. In our
now ubiquitous digital world, that caution applies exponentially with the pervasive nature of social media as well as the
professional media being able to capture and archive (even video now which captures nuances, body language and activities)
nearly everything stated. In light of this, I recently came across
a Golfweek interview by Adam Schupak with Steve Mona,
CEO of the World Golf Foundation, immediately following
the Golf 20/20 annual meeting on May 6, 2013. While we
can't take all the credit, Adam has followed Pellucid's work over
the years and cultivated a talent to ask the interesting questions
and bring his own set of facts to conversations with the industry association leaders and power brokers. Let's start with the
closing Steve Mona statement from the interview and work
our way backwards: "If we talk five years from now you can ask
a real simple question. Did we grow the number of participants
from 25.7M to 30M? Yes or no? Did you grow rounds played
from 467M to 550M. Yes or no?"
Let's rewind the tape and see what conversation points led
up to that bold proclamation and how we've done in the ensuing years. Adam's opening question, in the aftermath of the
Golf 20/20 annual leadership meeting was, "What was accomplished?" Steve outlined that they had sought and gotten approval to the 5-year strategic plan and "declaring participation
as the primary goal of the golf industry. Specifically, our goal
is to increase participation from 25.7 million golfers, which
is what it was at the end of 2012, 30 million at the end of
2017. That plan was approved in December ('12)." Quick reality check on the likelihood of that happening; it's currently
November 2017 and the 2016 Pellucid figure for participants
(1 rd/yr, age 7+) stood at 21M with a 5-year Compound Annual Change Rate (CACR) of -3%. Anyone want to take the
odds on that? Not only have we failed to grow participation
to anything near the "strategic plan" but we've actually gone
backwards by several million golfers (even if we use the NGF's
figures which are always slightly higher). This may also somewhat explain last year's media blitz and bold proclamation
that we need to expand the definition of "a golfer" beyond golf
played on an actual golf course. According to the NGF, and
consistent with some of their "new metrics", these Off-Course
only participants numbered 8M in '16 and include exclusive (i.e.
didn't play a round of golf on a course during the year) range,
TopGolf and simulator participants. You can see this 2018 deft
duck of the facts coming a mile away; 24M on-course participants (that's the NGF '16 YE number, let's assume it doesn't get
meaningfully worse) + 8M off-course only participants yields,
magically, >30M "golfers" at the end of 2017. Want more proof?
From the NGF 2016 Participation report, a direct quote from
LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan who states (wait for it.....),
"I really applaud the NGF for looking at the broader picture of
golf and the nearly 100 million people that consumed our great
game - in many different forms - in 2016," said LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan, who is also the chairman of the World
Golf Foundation. "It's hard not to be excited about key growth
drivers such as beginning golfers, latent demand/interest and
off-course participation - all of which were at record levels. As
our game evolves and the definition of 'playing golf ' expands, it's
important for our industry to track those evolutions and fully
embrace all aspects of consumers that are part of golf 's ultimate
impact." If you don't think the fix is in for the '17 Participation
Report via the allied industry "foundations" (NGF and WGF),
I've got a bridge in Arizona I'd like to sell you (or about 1,000
current golf courses, take your pick between the two sucker's
bets). Want even more proof that Golf 20/20 has totally failed?
Let's look back to the 2013 article and Steve's other elements
of their strategic plan. He states, "We also decided there were
five ongoing initiatives as an industry we should get behind and
support, rather than create a bunch of new initiatives. Those
five are: Get Golf Ready, Tee it Forward, PGA Junior League
Golf, The First Tee and The First Tee's National School Program." As Adam points out in his article in '13 and is still byand-large true today, 3 of those programs are focused on Junior
golf which has either declined (Pellucid version) or not grown
(NGF version). Of those 3, the PGA Junior League Golf has
shown promise and grown steadily but has not scaled quickly
enough to yet have a measurable impact on the national figures.
I've not seen an annual scorecard on Get Golf Ready in several
years and there's been very little executional communication out
Not only have we failed to grow participation to anything
near the "strategic plan" but we've actually gone
backwards by several million golfers (even if we use the
NGF's figures which are always slightly higher).
2 The Pellucid PersPecTive
November 2017
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Pellucid Perspective - November 2017
TOC
WGF Strategic Goals for 2018:Rapidly running out of time
Total Golf Adventures continues to tee off on golf’s participation problem
Signs of the times?
October golf weather impact: Month takes a hit, year remains flat
Columbus needs more tee times, less halftimes
Shark Experience unlikely to break golf’s chains
The Pellucid Perspective - November 2017 - TOC
The Pellucid Perspective - November 2017 - WGF Strategic Goals for 2018:Rapidly running out of time
The Pellucid Perspective - November 2017 - 3
The Pellucid Perspective - November 2017 - 4
The Pellucid Perspective - November 2017 - Total Golf Adventures continues to tee off on golf’s participation problem
The Pellucid Perspective - November 2017 - 6
The Pellucid Perspective - November 2017 - Signs of the times?
The Pellucid Perspective - November 2017 - 8
The Pellucid Perspective - November 2017 - October golf weather impact: Month takes a hit, year remains flat
The Pellucid Perspective - November 2017 - 10
The Pellucid Perspective - November 2017 - 11
The Pellucid Perspective - November 2017 - Columbus needs more tee times, less halftimes
The Pellucid Perspective - November 2017 - 13
The Pellucid Perspective - November 2017 - Shark Experience unlikely to break golf’s chains
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