The Pellucid Perspective - September 2023 - 16

MARKET FOCUS
Philadelphia holding in Top 20 (#20), not making
any ground though on leaders
Philadelphia, PA
Core Business Statistical Area (CBSA)
I
n this monthly section we profile one of the Top 25 US Golf
Markets based on a Pellucid composite score of the golfer
base, the supply level and rounds demand. Within that Top
25 universe, we then rank them based on relative health using
a Pellucid weighted scoring system of 4 variables ranging from
Population Growth to Revenue/Pricing strength.
In this issue, we'll travel east to the City of Brotherly
Love, the Philadelphia PA CBSA. Since our first ranking
back in '15, Philadelphia has consistently ranked in the 2025th
position landing at #20 in '21 with the last 3 rankings
shown in the " tale of the tape " below:
* Composite Health Ranking: 20
* Last 3 Composite Health Rankings: 21st, 22nd, 20th
('17, '19, '21)
* Number of Golfers Market Ranking: 10
* Number Rounds Market Ranking: 12
* Number of Holes Market Ranking: 6
Looking at the market profile measures (above table), we
see that the market has a healthy golf consumer base of ~430K
golfers (this is local, resident population only).
That golfer
base is served by a modest supply base of 184 18-hole equivalent
(EHE) facilities producing an average ratio of ~2.3K local
resident golfers per EHE, significantly higher than the national
average (169 index).
The supply mix vs. the national distribution across Pellucid's
five access/value/usage segments shows an exclusive bias
to Private (169 index, see all the red stars in the map?) vs.
the national distribution. The split between Private/Public is
49%/51% which skews heavily to Private vs. the national average
of 28%/72%. The balance between Value-added golf supply
(Private & Public Premium) vs. Value golf (Public Value,
Price and Learning & Practice) is 62%/38% which is heavily
tilted to Value-added vs. the US average of 49%/51% (due to
extreme Private " bloat " ). Remember also that we establish
the Premium/Value/Price segments by individual market so
that's factoring in differences in cost of living/cost of golf as
we cross markets (unlike industry trade associations' classifications
where Manhattan NY has the same price segmentation
as Manhattan KS, go figure). Within Public-Regulation
golf, the distribution between Premium/Value/Price is
30%/37%/33% which skews only slightly to the Public-Value
segment vs. the national distribution of 32%/35%/32%.
Looking at the productivity of the average facility in the market,
using our proprietary Velocity measure (Annual Rounds per
18-hole equivalent), shows ~31K rounds per year which indexes
16 The Pellucid PersPecTive
Golfer Base
- Est. # of Golfers (Ks)
- # of 18 Hole Equivalent Facilities
- Golfers per 18-Hole Equiv.
Supply Mix
Tot. Holes
- Private
- Pub-Prem
- Pub-Val
- Pub-Price
- Learn & Prac
Rounds Demand & Facility Velocity
Tot. Facility-reported Rounds
Philadelphia, PA
CBSA Tot US
430 21,065
184 15,242
2,334 1,382
Index
vs. US
169
3,100
49% 29% 169
13% 20%
16% 22%
14% 20%
8%
9%
- Avg. Ann Rds Velocity (Ks, per EHE)
- %Utilization Rate (Fac. Vel/Cap. Rds)
5,685,144
30.9 32.4
50% 54%
Above average level vs. US (Index >105)
Average level vs. US (Index 95-104)
Below average level vs. US (Index <95)
65
73
70
89
95
92
Private
PubPremium
FPROF
PubPremium
MUNI
PubValue
FPROF
PubValue
MUNI
PubPrice
FPROF
PubPrice
MUNI
Learning
&
Practice
Closed
at
95 (neutral) vs. the national average of 32K. Applying our
industry-exclusive Utilization measure (played rounds/capacity
rounds), we see similar comparative performance, after weather
adjustment (due to the longer season length based on the maritime-influence
coastal climate), of 50% which indexes slightly
lower than the national average of 54%. We guess the consolation
prize for being over-developed on Private is that it has depressed
all Pub-Regulation segments proportionately vs. what
we see in other markets which is Private over-supply primarily
depresses Pub-Premium golf; go figure.
In summary, the golfer base and concentration per EHE
September 2023
The Pellucid Perspective - September 2023

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