The Pellucid Perspective - December 2024 - 9

Despite the lack of any high-profile events and the abatement we're
seeing of strong new participant growth immediately following
COVID, we're going to have a " sneaky good " 2nd consecutive record
Golf Revenue year fueled by both volume and rate increases.
pricing power so change in volume = change in revenue (what
we do take to the bank). Knowing that this wouldn't always be
the case, Stuart and I have been working for nearly a decade to
fill in the missing variables of Golf Revenue which would then
also provide visibility into Effective Rate (GRev/Rds) and Rate
Card Rate (highest Weekend Greens Fee) which would unlock
pricing direction and discount levels. We were also interested
in collecting facility-level information across geographies to
see how trends were playing out across Public Premium vs.
Value vs. Price segments and, if we lived long enough, muni's
vs. privately-held public courses. Thanks to our evolutionary
progress on the Golf Market Research Center (at times seeming
to happen at evolutionary pace, measured in decades vs. years)
and our partnership with Metolius in automating the liberation
of key facility performance facts (with facilities' cooperation and
participation), we're now in a unique position of being able to
better dimensionalize industry performance month-to-month
as well as being in sole position to forecast year-end results from
roughly the midpoint on.
So what is this lone capability telling us about how '24 is
going to end? Despite the lack of any high-profile events and
the abatement we're seeing of strong new participant growth
immediately following COVID, we're going to have a " sneaky
good " 2nd consecutive record Golf Revenue year fueled by both
volume and rate increases. But wait...there's more!
Inquiring
minds want to know how much of that favorability will have
been driven by weather " help " (in track, that would be called a
" wind-aided " record) and how much of it was strong organic
consumer demand/spending coupled with operational excellence
(the part that we actually can influence)? While I don't want
to spoil the anticipation and excitement of our annual " reveal "
at the upcoming 22nd State of the Industry presentation in
Orlando during the PGA Show and because, being a capitalist
at heart and preferring to sell you those answers rather than give
them away here, I'm just going to provide directional guidance
on a few of the key metrics:
* Golf Revenue - will finish up 5-10% vs. the record level
recorded in '23 (wow!)
* Rounds - will contribute ~33% of that gain (moderate
math skills will allow you to back into the " up " range);
that result will also qualify as a modern-era record
* Avg. Achieved Rate - will contribute the other ~67%
of the GRev gain; this will also be a record level but we
only have visibility back to '19 so it gets an *
* Golf Revenue-per-Available Round (weather adjusted
" money " ) - will be up 8-11% (meaning, weather
was actually a fractional headwind in '24 which we
overcame)
www.PellucidcorP.com
* % Utilization - will finish +1-4 points and remain
above 60% in the absolute which is well above the
previous trading range of 52-55% pre-COVID and off
moderately vs. the COVID era where we were pushing
70%
*
Discount rate - will be +/- 2 pts meaning that the rate
card (or dynamic) pricing we took in '24 we made stick
and consumers continued to play and pay higher rates
That my friends would be the equivalent of shooting a course
record round at Augusta National with nary a bogey (heck, those
results are more like nary a par). Let's pause and compare that
to the historical industry performance standard of reporting and
measurement which, at the end of October, stood at the sole
metric of Rounds +2.6%.
Two takeaways here for the closing weeks of 2024. First,
we've got much better visibility into industry performance in
breadth, accuracy and forecasting than we've ever had before
and it's coming at perfect timing as the industry continues to set
new high-water marks for the critical metrics. In a shameless
plug, I can't fathom how every industry stakeholder that relies on
the engine of golf course revenue growth wouldn't be a Pellucid
Publications member for this and other monthly visibility for the
princely sum of <$500/yr (you can even subscribe on monthly
installment if you're concerned about your cashflow down to
that minute level). Second, we're not doing this by ourselves
or because we're the smartest people in the room (OK, we do
think we're among the smartest people in the collective " room
of golf " ). This started and continues as a collective, co-op effort
of the early adopters to the GMRC who input " 3 Numbers "
monthly and get comparative, weather-adjusted trend and
scorecard reports and from which we compile and project the
national performance measures across our 7 Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs). With their help and persistence (we haven't
yet lost a subscriber) we've managed to reach " minimal (vs.
critical) mass " and we're hopeful that our future migration to
automated data transfer with Metolius will both make their life
as participants easier, give us a wider range of metrics and shorter
reporting periods (weekly vs. monthly) and fuel the expansion
of participants and increase the network (both national and
across select markets) to provide even more reliable and granular
summaries. More info here if you're an owner/operator and
would like to explore joining our merry little band of progressive
thinkers, smart operators and outperformers.
We'll call that my Christmas wish and sign off also wishing
you and yours a Merry Christmas (to my fellow Christians) and
happy holidays (to those of all other faiths and beliefs) filled with
joy, peace on earth and hope in our " better angels " living into an
even better '25 in both our personal and professional lives. n
The Pellucid PersPecTive
9
https://www.pellucidcorp.com/reports/pellucid-membership-program https://www.pellucidcorp.com/reports/pellucid-membership-program https://www.pellucidcorp.com/reports/golf-market-research-center http://www.PellucidcorP.com
The Pellucid Perspective - December 2024

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