April continued extended the streak of double-digit deficits vs. last year’s weather to four as Golf Playable Hours (GPH) came in at -16% vs. Year Ago (YA) at the national level. For the Year-to-Period (YtD), the GPH comparative measure improved slightly to “only” -25%. For the YtD period, the regional breadth ratio is negative at 1:6 with 5 regions having favorable weather against 31 regions with unfavorable weather (9 regions are in the neutral zone of +/- 2%). Looking at YtD weather impact performance by day-of-week, the unfavorable weather continued the trend of being only slightly more skewed to weekdays vs. weekends. For the full-year forecast, our April update deteriorated further meaning that 2013 is projected to come in even lower than the 2011 base year which 2012 beat handily. The values for the above two metrics, the monthly timeseries for the entire year as well as market-level Utilization for the preceding month are available to Pellucid Publications Members via the Client Login section at the Pellucid website (go to www.pellucidcorp.com for information or to subscribe).
Looking back on March rounds played, as reported by Golf Datatech, to calculate the facility % Utilization Rate (UR), rounds demand (-23%) outperformed the unfavorable comparative weather (-46%) resulting in a UR level for the month of 73% which is 22 points higher than the benchmark 2012 year-end value of 51%. For the YtD period the trend is similar with rounds declines (-15%) less than the unfavorable comparative weather (-32%) producing a UR of 64% or up a healthy 13 points vs. 2012 year-end.
Jim Koppenhaver comments, “Not being able to resist a really bad pun, “When it rains, it pours.” In April 2012 here in Chicago we were playing considerable golf, in 2013 we had to look hard for playable weather the entire month and hence most local facilities are seeing a two-month magnitude swing in their rounds and revenue results. As we outlined last month in both the Weather Impact release and the Outside the Ropes newsletter issue, this spring isn’t just poor by 2012’s near-record standards, it continues to underperform the 10-year average “norms” which is quite a whipsaw, particularly for the Northeast and Great Lakes region facility operators. The silver lining this year continues to be the fact that rounds demand is not following weather linearly (i.e. a 46% decline in GPH is not producing a 46% decrease in rounds) so we’re seeing healthy resilience by the core golfer to get out and play even when conditions are marginal. April was also not kind to us in the full-year forecast as it declined slightly and continues to suggest that GPH will finish the year when we turn the page in December down double digits vs. 2012 (but it won’t be down by the current YtD magnitude of 25% which is the small solace thusfar in the tea leaves).”
On the Golf Fee Revenue (GFR) side via the March YtD PGA PerformanceTrak numbers, they’re reporting -6% for Median Total Revenue (meaningfully better than the 13% rounds decline which means GF rate-per-played-round was up 7%; this relationship doesn’t seem to ever move in the PGA universe, very similar to the Performance Factor where rounds never stray from the Days Open figure). Inferring Revenue per Available Round (RevpAR, or the revenue efficiency of our “factories”) by comparing the YtD GFR decline (-11%) against the GPH decline (-32%) suggests that RevpAR is way up vs. year ago.
A broader and more detailed scorecard of the monthly key industry metrics can be found in Pellucid’s free digital magazine, The Pellucid Perspective. To register to get the current and future editions, go to http://www.pellucidcorp.com/news/elist, fill in the information and you will be registered for the next edition on 5/15/13.
Intelligent, curious and courageous industry stakeholders wanting the detailed metrics and monthly updates on weather impact at the national, regional and market level as well as utilization and the full year forecast numbers can subscribe to the Pellucid Publications Membership (Outside the Ropes monthly newsletter, 2012 State of the Industry, Monthly Weather Impact and Top 25 Golf Markets reports) for $495 annually. For individual facility owner/operators who need facility-level history, current year results by month and day-of-week and full year forecast data, Pellucid/Edgehill’s self-serve, web-delivered, real-time weather impact service product, Cognilogic, is your answer. It’s available for $240 for the year-end report and 12 month tracking or $120 for a single year-end report. For more information, contact Stuart Lindsay of Edgehill Golf Advisors (edgehillgolf@msn.com). You can now order either of the above information services via Pellucid’s online store at http://www.pellucidcorp.com/purchase-reports/online-store.
Contact:
Jim Koppenhaver, President, Pellucid Corp.
jimk@pellucidcorp.com
www.pellucidcorp.com
