The Pellucid Perspective - May 2016 - (Page 10)

GOLF COURSE BENCHMARKING Path to course performance benchmarking difficult, but not impossible By Stuart Lindsay 'B ut here's the thing...it's 2016, people! We need you to participate, but we shouldn't have to ask you to hand-enter information. Why can't we identify all the tee time systems, which should naturally have data on rounds played, and have them all fed into one, central repository?" Jay Karen, CEO, NGCOA, April 2016 We couldn't agree with Jay more. However, it may be 2016, but the reality is that this is much easier said than done. Jay references the hotel industry Star Report as the desired system golf should strive to emulate and create. We also agree with that, but the Star Report requires both room nights sold (rounds) and revenue to create their benchmarks. You can get rounds from the tee sheet software, but revenue has to come from the Point of Sale (POS) software. As we outlined last month, you also need the Weather Adjusted Capacity calculations to determine how many rounds a course had to sell, broken down by comparable time periods. Available room nights are relatively easy for the Star Report to calculate. Our recent efforts in compiling our new Internet Golf Database (IGDB) tracks technology use by golf courses where it can be determined. There are over 50 tee sheet platforms of varying ages in use and a similar number of POS choices in use. Due to specific course needs and platform features, many courses are using a tee sheet from one vendor and a POS platform from another. And this is just one complication. As best we can determine, there are about 8,000 public golf courses using electronic tee sheets and POS systems. The vast majority are facilities with 18 holes or more and about 4,500 are using systems from GolfNow, EZLinks/IBS, Club Prophet and ForeUp. There are several other new up-and-comers and some It will probably get me in some trouble, but the comparative reporting on all of these platforms leaves a lot to be desired. older legacy platforms that divide up the next 3,500. It should be noted that there has been significant migration between platforms since GolfNow bought Fore Reservations, along with Active's 4 versions and Crescent Systems. With the exception of ForeUp, we have dissected the table structure of all the specifically mentioned platforms above. It will probably get me in some trouble, but the comparative reporting on all of these platforms leaves a lot to be desired. The data is mostly all there, but I'll be happy to print a prominent retraction if one of the vendors shows that they can create something similar to the charts illustrated with the insertion of a date range and the click on one button. ROUNDS That same click also generates the following breakdown of the same rounds. ROUNDS BY WEEK DAY 10 The Pellucid PersPecTive May 2016

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

TOC
USGA member engagement initiative: A golden opportunity or will the goose get cooked?
Rising tide of third party management good for the industry?
Bogeys become bison, boar and deer at former Ohio course
Path to course performance benchmarking difficult, but not impossible
April golf weather impact; Giving back some of Q1 gains
Motown operators facing uphill but possible climb
From the sublime to the ridiculous

The Pellucid Perspective - May 2016