The Pellucid Perspective - March 2016 - (Page 10)

GOLF INDUSTRY DATA Say it ain't so, Joe NGF head lays golf's woes at operators' doorsteps By Stuart Lindsay 'N GF is a non-profit, objective and independent resource dedicated to supporting all the people, companies, facilities and associations that earn their living in golf." NGF Website Landing Page "All of the preaching by guys like me will do absolutely no good if 15,000 golf courses are not managed better." Joe Beditz, Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2016 How's that for support of the 15,000 golf course managers trying to earn their livings in golf ? If you think this was taken out of context, it was the conclusion of an article that also contained the following: "And according to the NGF, a leading research and consulting group, that is less an indictment of the game itself than of the operators of the country's 15,000 courses." Brian Costa, Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2016 "It's like we're running a gas station. Come or don't come. Here's the price." Joe Beditz, Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2016 For all you long time industry veterans out there, all I should have to say is Westchester, 1988. For any of you not getting the reference, even though the hit movie "Field of Dreams" did not add "If you build it, they will come" to the American lexicon until the following year, that phrase has been used to describe the research of the NGF presented during the late 1980s and 90s ever since. "Some point a finger at the National Golf Foundation, the clearinghouse for golf-industry research and consulting services. The NGF got developers' attention in the late 1980s and early '90s by suggesting that, based upon participation rates that were climbing 3 to 4 percent a year and assumptions that aging baby boomers would soon retire--or at the very least work fewer hours--the golf course market could absorb roughly one new course a day from 1988-'98." Chris Millard, Golf Digest. August 12, 2008 In the same article, Beditz tried to explain himself with 20/20 20 year hindsight. "We said in 1988, that given the growth rates and participation rates we were seeing, golf could support it," Beditz says of the course-a-day plan. "We also said that the building should be across all categories, ranging from the low end to the high end. Of course, everybody not only built high-end, but they built in the same markets." Golf Digest, August 12, 2008 That explanation followed this observation - "Today, NGF chief executive Joe Beditz acknowledges the golf-course glut but says that course developers heard from the NGF only what they wanted to hear." Golf Digest, August 12, 2008 10 THE PELLUCID PERSPECTIVE In addition to throwing another group of golf industry participants under the bus, does anybody ask how many of these "positive" feasibility findings came from NGF generated reports? And how many of those reports recommended a type of course that needed high greens fees to support the project costs? And even more importantly, how many of the other "positive" reports were based on NGF generated participation data that was sold to other feasibility "experts" - me included. At least I was experienced enough to adjust for the exclusion of the population under 5, or 12 or 18 depending on how the NGF changed methodologies during the 1990s. I can't say the same for all of the other feasibility studies people asked me to review after the fact - usually because a project did not go quite as planned. There was a time in the early 2000s that the NGF was only providing regional participation data that only served to make their statistics less accurate. We were still building 100s of courses a year based on that even less accurate data until 2005. In fact, it wasn't until Jim Koppenhaver came into the industry (1999) that we started to track rounds played at the course level instead of relying on consumer survey data for not only participation, but for estimates of rounds played. The same can be said for issues of Age, Income, Ethnicity and Weather where Beditz Pellucid has also provided thought leadership in golf. The fact that the NGF has adopted many of these concepts is actually a good thing - golf research is better today than it was in 1988. I could go on pulling the curtain back, but my mother always told me not to cry over spilled milk. Of course, she also taught me how to clean up the mess and that the spilled milk adage also applied to my bedroom. What bothers me is this pattern of diverting attention from the sometimes less than accurate and falsely portrayed unbiased research from the NGF by placing the blame on bad management and inept developer/owners. The construction of all these new courses benefitted other NGF constituencies - architects, contractors, equipment vendors and golf car manufacturers - all of whom theoretically got paid, leaving a new golf course owner solely responsible for whether the golfers promised at Westchester actually showed up or not. Not to mention that the research implied golfers would show up even if they only got "gas station" level service. So I guess the NGF is simply going to look at the milk they spilled and expect 15,000 bad golf course managers, and by default the inept golf course owners that hired them, will figure out how to clean it up on their own. At least my mother tried to teach me how to clean up the mess. n MARCH 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Pellucid Perspective - March 2016

TOC
PGA Junior League Golf: Timing is everything
Century old course takes futuristic approach to renovation project
Spring hopes eternal
Turf reduction changing the face of Southwest golf
Say it ain’t so, Joe
February golf weather impact: Good times return
Numbers not peachy for Atlanta golf
Golf’s future under Donald, Hillary, Ted, Bernie et al

The Pellucid Perspective - March 2016