Pellucid Corp., which provides data-based consulting services to the golf industry, reports that April’s largely favorable weather around the country posted an 11% increase in Golf Playable Hours (GPH) for the month, compared to the same period last year. This positive month continued the “perfect roller coaster pattern” (down, up, down, up) of the first four months of the year, the consulting firm reported, with the year-to-date total through April amounting to 1% lower GPH vs. the same period in 2007.
Pellucid’s tracking system breaks the country into 45 regions defined by latitude, elevation and maritime influence. Of those regions, 24 registered declines of 2% or greater in GPH for the first four months of the year, compared to 16 showing increases of 2% or more (the remaining 5 regions showed relatively no change).
Pellucid also compares its weather-based findings about playable hours to Golf Datatech’s rounds results, to compute a “utilization rate” for the month. For March (the last month where rounds results are available), the industry registered a 61% Utilization Rate for the month, Pellucid reports, compared to the 2007 national benchmark of 52%. This means that while rounds were down 8% for the month, the industry actually “outperformed Mother Nature’s influence,” the firm says. And for the first three months of the year the national Utilization Rate rested at 56%, or up 4 points compared to 2007’s full-year rate of 52%.
“Were I a betting man, I’d bet that the April rounds results, when they’re released next month, will be up vs. a year ago,” Pellucid President Jim Koppenhaver commented. “The March results, however, already make a compelling case as to why we bother to track historical weather performance and impact. While the headlines about rounds played have often started with, ‘Golf industry in doldrums,’ the fact of the matter is that the industry has actually improved its utilization at the national level.
“This doesn’t change the stark reality that rounds, and therefore probably revenues, were down for the month,” Koppenhaver acknowledged. “But intelligent operators will refrain from significantly altering programs implemented in March based on the impact of an uncontrollable factor.”
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