November weather offset October's dramatic decline and then some as
Golf Playable Hours (GPH) were up 36% for the Total US vs. November
2008. That created a meaningful upward swing in the GPH Year-to-Date (YtD)
results moving it up by almost 2 full points to +1% at the end of
November.
The superior golf weather was widespread as 27 of 45 regions showed
significant increases. This nudged the YtD breadth ratio (measured as #
of regions up compared against # of regions down) up slightly but it
remains negative at the close of the month at 1:1.2. This is comprised
of 11 regions up vs. 13 down with the remaining 21 weather-based
regions recording neutral results (+/-2% with all 45 regions still "in
play"). Leading the "weather favorable" key rounds-contribution regions
for the November YtD period are Mid Continental, Ohio Valley (North,
Central and South) and PA West with GPH favorability of 5%+. On the
"weather challenged" side of the ledger, only two key rounds regions
remain in the GPH deficit range of 3%+ for the year, Florida North and
Gulf Coast.
Looking back at the previously-reported October weather results vs. the
industry alliance rounds played, the Utilization Rate (UR) took a dive
registering 45% or a drop of 3 points for the month (comprised of a 16%
decrease in rounds demand against a 10% GPH decline for the month).
Pellucid's Market-Level Weather Impact tracking identifies the biggest
gainers and losers in % Utilization Rate for 61 markets/states/state
groups. The market-level breadth for the October YtD period shows 9
geographies up compared to 13 down and 39 in the neutral zone producing
a slightly negative market-level breadth ratio of 1:1.4. Leading the
"utilization winners" are San Antonio and Houston while Hawaii and Utah
continue to top the "utilization losers" list.
Pellucid President Jim Koppenhaver comments on the current results
saying, "November's weather results will probably go down in history as
"a lot but too late" for most geographies. I'll be surprised frankly if
we see rounds increases in excess of 10% for the month nationally which
will produce another drop in utilization. It's not that we're bad
operators, it's just that great weather that late into the season for
the northern climates has not historically been rewarded by golfers
with significant increases in play. Part of the reason is increased
competition for weekend interest (i.e. college and pro football, school
activities etc.) and I suspect the other is just apathy and fatigue (or
both). We'll see when the rounds results come out what we were able
generate based on an incredible weather opportunity month. Looking back
on October, I had predicted, based on the GPH results, that we would be
doing well to hold utilization (i.e. a 10% drop in rounds demand) and,
unfortunately, even I was too optimistic. In the pre-Pellucid days, we
would have chalked all of October's 16% decrease in rounds played to
bad weather but in today's "enlightened" world, we can say that the
majority of our decrease was weather-related but a meaningful portion
was not. That creates a see-saw pattern in utilization for the last two
months; in September we were able to produce organic rounds growth but
we could not sustain that momentum in October even after factoring out
a poor weather month. The summary good news however is that, with 11
months behind us and only trailing 2008 by 1% in rounds demand at the
national level, golf will outperform most every other US industry with
top line volume results that aren't down by double-digits."
"Consistent with our client trends, PGA PerformanceTrak's October YtD
Executive Summary continues to show a 5% decline in Median Golf Fee
Revenue driven by a 3% decrease in Median Golf Fee Revenue per Round
(rate) and slightly negative rounds demand (volume). The Resort segment
continues to be the hardest hit on volume, rate and revenue measures
showing down 5%, 9% and 14% respectively for the YtD period."
With the addition of monthly market-level weather and utilization
tracking, Pellucid now offers three levels of geography-based reports
(US, 45 Regions, 61 Market/States) and three levels of facility-based
reports (the 10-yr Trend Summary, the Annual Review report and the
Monthly Tracking service). Pellucid also continues to integrate weather
impact into their Facility Performance Scorecard (FPS) application for
clients using the FORE! Reservations Point-of-Sale system as well as
incorporating it into custom research projects and Golf Local Market
Analyzer reports as an additional dimension. Combined with the client
revenue data, the facility-level reports quantify the key measure of
RevpAR (Revenue per Available (capacity) Round) which is the single
best measure of the financial efficiency of the golf "factory."
More from the 19th Hole.
