The Pellucid Perspective - October 2016 - 11

registered a slight decline in Utilization for the month as the significant demand decrease lapped the month's GPH decline. For
the YtD period, at the national level Utilization still looks like a
draw with the slight gain in rounds nearly matching the favorable weather results. Utilization figures for the month at the
National and 61 key Markets (including Pellucid's designated
Top 25 markets) level are also available to Pellucid Publications
members and Geographic Weather Impact report subscribers.
Jim Koppenhaver comments, "September's results were a
mixed bag resulting in a basic "net nothing" at the national level.
Looking across the 45 region map visualization for the month,
there's no discernible pattern, although the majority of the
heartland and west Great Lakes regions were in the red. GPH
gainers for the month were led by Atlanta and the Kansas/

Rounds by Facility Type Aug 2016
All Fac.
Types

Public
Access

Private

2.0% ___________________________________________
1.3%
0.8%
0.8%
1.0% ___________________________________________

0.0% ___________________________________________
___________________________________________
-1.0%
___________________________________________
-2.0%
___________________________________________
-3.0%
___________________________________________
-4.0%
___________________________________________
-4.5%
-5.0% -4.6%
___________________________________________
-1.1%
-6.0%

Source: GDT/NGCOA/NGF alliance

As we introduced recently, this is a new view which replaces
the former tables on Revenue and Rate (until a PerformanceTrak successor emerges) with a view into Utilization and the
Point Change vs. the Year End '15 value to quantify how rounds
demand is being influenced by favorable/unfavorable weather.
For those relatively new to Pellucid Weather Impact tracking,
the underlying concept is relatively simple. In a perfect world
(i.e. if rounds are linearly correlated to weather), a 5% increase
in Golf Playable Hours (Capacity Rounds) would produce a 5%
gain in actual Rounds Played. By comparing Rounds Played
to Capacity Rounds, we can determine the Utilization of the
average facility and how it's changing across the year vs. some
benchmark (here we use the last full year's rate of 51%).
The first set of bars above show that August posted a Utilization rate of 50%, which represents a 1 pt decline vs. the FY '15
value. In other words, the month's significant drop in Rounds
Played was greater than the Capacity Rounds decline for the
month. That unfortunately breaks our 2-month win streak of
Utilization that was potentially pointing to us having (slightly)
more control over our demand destiny. The second set of bars
show the Year-to-Date (YtD) values which report Utilization of

Oklahoma/Missouri region, which had solid single-digit gains
vs. YA. Among the biggest losers, the Great Lakes was a sea of
red (bad pun) in GPH figures as well as Florida South and East
PA/NY/NJ. Looking back at August Utilization, we took a hit
at the national level which breaks our 3-month winning streak
as the SW was particularly hard hit with rounds losses against
favorable weather. In YtD Utilization performance breadth
across the 61 markets, we're basically playing to a tie with 11
up, 8 down and the majority (42) in the neutral zone. If you
want to know which 8 markets are posting Utilization gains and
how successful they've been against the weather results, you can
get that level of detail information by subscribing to any of the
weather impact services described above. The point is, it can be
done and several markets are showing us how."
n

n Curr Month
n Curr YtD

Looking at rounds demand for golf for the current month, the
demand "comps" are off significantly vs. Year Ago (YA) at -5%,
driven by declines in both sectors. For the Year-to-Date (YtD)
period, the current month decline trimmed the first half gains
and now stands at +1% through eight months, driven by the
Public sector. While we'd like to see more robust rounds growth
overall, the above YtD picture of rounds up and Public "driving the bus" is our preferred situation. Curiously however, it's
hard to understand how Public is up 1.3% and controls 79%
of rounds with Private contributing only 21% and yet the All
Facility Types figure mirrors the 21% component? (Might want
to check either that math or the sample balance).

right on 51%, which is basically flat to the FY '15 value so the
August Utilization decline wasn't so severe to materially hurt us
for the cumulative year. We'll see what October brings as we
move into the "shoulder season" for the northern climates.

Utilization & Point Change Aug 2016
n %Utilization
Curr. Month

n Pt. Chng vs. FY '15
YtD

60.0% _______________________________________ 0.0
50.3%

50.9%

50.0% _______________________________________ -0.2
40.0% _______________________________________ -0.4
-0.4

30.0% _______________________________________ -0.6
20.0% _______________________________________ -0.8
10.0% _______________________________________
-1.0
-1.0
0.0% _______________________________________ -1.2
Source: GDT/NGCOA/NGF alliance; Pellucid

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