The Pellucid Perspective - May 2020 - 12

INDUSTRY
SCORECARD

Follow the bouncing ball, do Rounds &
Utilization tell us anything?
Industry Key Performance Indicators at-a-glance

Rounds by Facility Type Mar 2020
All Fac.
Types

Public
Access

Private

15.0% ___________________________________________
9.3%
10.0% ___________________________________________

5.0% ___________________________________________
3.8%
2.1%

0.0%
0.0% ___________________________________________

-5.0% ___________________________________________
-10.0% ___________________________________________
-8.5%
-10.9%

-15.0% ___________________________________________

n Curr Month
n Curr YtD

Looking at demand for March as reported by Golf Datatech, we
hit the brakes as COVID started generating state shutdowns in
the first half of the month and spread (the shutdowns and the
virus) at an escalating pace from there as rounds finished down
9% vs. Year Ago (YA), driven exclusively by the Public sector (not
sure I'm buying the Private results reported). The Year-to-Date
(YtD) figures took a similar hit but remained in positive territory
driven largely by the Private sector. That leads us to the obvious
question of "How much of that drop was COVID vs. weather
(both uncontrollable)?" For the answer to that question, we'll
need to look at the month via Pellucid's unique view of Utilization.

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) '19 value of 53%. 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 (unsurprising) news for the month is that COVID completely and totally obliterated the +24% GPH favorability for
the month and exclusively drove the 14 point Utilization drop.
For the YtD period, the March results also put a significant dent
in Utilization but rounds and GPH remain in positive territory
(rounds +4%, GPH +19%, hence the ugly Utilization). Spoiler
alert, April is likely to be even uglier as we've already reported
that GPH was down and the course closures hit their apex in
mid-April as well.

Utilization & Point Change Mar 2020
n %Utilization
Curr. Month

n Pt. Chng vs. FY '17
YtD

50.0% ______________________________________-
52.4%
45.0% ______________________________________
-
38.7%
40.0% ______________________________________
-
35.0% ______________________________________
-
30.0% ______________________________________
-6.8
25.0% ______________________________________-
20.0% ______________________________________-
15.0% ______________________________________
-
10.0% ______________________________________
-13.6
-
5.0% ______________________________________
0.0% ______________________________________-

0.0
-2.0
-4.0
-6.0
-8.0
-10.0
-12.0
-14.0
-16.0

Source: GDT/NGCOA/NGF alliance, Pellucid

12 The Pellucid Perspective

May 2020

The Pellucid Perspective - May 2020

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