The Pellucid Perspective - November 2022 - 6

INDUSTRY
PERFORMANCE
We've had a Great Season;
Where are All the Cheerleaders?
By Jim Koppenhaver
J
ust this past week I compiled the Golf Market Research
Center (GMRC) " portfolio " of courses' figures for October
and Year-to-Date (YtD) and the numbers are very
healthy. As part of our partnership with our members in that
network, we publish the portfolio and individual markets' results
monthly, mostly for their reference as we don't yet have
enough facilities in individual markets (or nationally for that
matter) to create a projectable sample for true benchmarking.
Nonetheless, they do get to see the results across multiple
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to which no one else in
the industry has access and they've relayed that they value the
broader scorecard which tracks Rounds, Golf Revenue, Average
Rate, Capacity Rounds, % Utilization, RevpAR and %
Discount Rate.
Coincidentally, recently I came across an article in the Wall
Street Journal titled, " Most Common Gas Price is Far from
Average " which was an interesting (at least for us analysts, ha,
ha) treatment of the various price references made by politicians
and the like regarding gas prices and how they selectively
use the metrics of average (just add 'em up and divide by the
number of values), median (the midpoint where half the values
are above and half below) and most common (the most
prevalent single price point). What caught my eye however
was not the math but the fact that the gas industry, consisting
of a large number of independent small business operators, is
contributing to and finding value in GasBuddy's aggregated
figures that spell all this out for them, what the range of the
price spectrum is and where they fall on that spectrum on a
week-by-week basis. Pause there and come back to the golf
industry which for years has told Stuart and I that the reason
we don't have comparative period performance tracking,
market and industry summaries and benchmarking is because
we're predominately small business owners running, on average,
$1-$2M annual revenue businesses. So I guess the logic
disconnect for me continues to be, " Wait, so we're smaller and
not as smart as independent gas station owner/operators who
figured this out and are participating in (to the tune of 1.5K
nationally according to the WSJ article) over the past 5 years
and we haven't been able to successfully tackle it in the 20 years
I've been in the industry? " That one's a head-scratcher to me
but it's what we keep telling ourselves and that consistent and
pervasive retelling of the excuse simply perpetuates the belief
(myth?).
But I digress... Back to the headline of what a great, under-reported
season we've had for the golf owner/operators out
there based on the GMRC portfolio and our projections. Let
me walk you through the October YtD KPI scorecard and the
" waterfall " analysis and commentary that we provide to our
6 The Pellucid PersPecTive
subscribers each month:
* Golf Revenue (the cardinal metric, what you can take
to the bank): +4%
o Range of results spans Boston +12%,
Washington DC -12%
* Played Rounds: -1%
o Range of results spans Dallas +20%, Washington
DC -20% (see revenue)
* Avg. Rate per Round: +5% (some combination of
pricing up, golfers playing more primetime, less or
shallower discounting)
* Capacity Rounds: -6%
o Range of results Washington DC +1% (losses not
weather), Chicago -10%
* % Utilization: 73%, +4 pts (combination of weather
-6% but rounds only -1%)
* Revenue-per-Available Round (RevpAR): $29.49,
+11% (intersection of weather down 6%, revenue up
4%)
* % Discount Rate: 34%, +1 point (this measures what
our achieved green fee is vs. our rate card; provides a
barometer on the depth and direction of discounting
which here illustrates that we haven't goosed
performance via deep discounting)
In the absolute, the above scorecard is other-worldly given
the 20-year journey through the wilderness we've experienced
since I joined the industry (but, hey, it's only been half the period
that the Israelites wandered through the desert back in
Exodus). Now let's factor in that we're posting these results
on top of a '20 which was the 2nd year of our post-COVID
prosperity tour and I don't know how the various stakeholders
in golf haven't been shouting this from the rooftops as we close
the " national " season for '22. Oh wait, I do know why that is...
The industry cheerleaders and " heads of state " haven't been
hyping the great season we've had because they have no visibility
to it. Exhibit A would be a recent Golf Inc. conference
and the (requisite) panel session on State of the Industry; the
only one on that panel who had these critical figures through
the end of September (10 days after the close of the month)
was Jay Karen and that came courtesy of our initial participants
in the GMRC and their usual quick responsiveness in providing
their Rounds, Golf Revenue and Peak Rate inputs to the
portal which we aggregate in the above fashion (also of note is
that about half of them are NGCOA members, the other half
are not) to get to national performance. My point is that we
really can't have an intelligent discussion and debate about the
November 2022
The Pellucid Perspective - November 2022

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