Car sales fell, retailers experienced soft holiday sales and banks failed in the second half of 2008, so it's no surprise that Mother Nature followed suit with a disappointing fourth quarter that resulted in a 6 percent decrease in Golf Playable Hours, reports Pellucid Corp.
December's national weather showed another meaningful decline in Golf Playable Hours (GPH), down 6 percent compared to the same period last year. The unfavorable weather month dragged the December Year-to-Date (YtD) results down yet again to -0.1 percent compared to the same period in 2007 (still statistically neutral).
The regional breadth ratio (measured as the number of regions up compared to the number of regions down) remained in negative territory at 1:2.2. This is comprised of 10 regions showing GPH gains for the year of 2 percent or more opposed by 22 regions with GPH decreases of 2 percent or more (the remaining 13 regions are in the neutral zone or +/-2 percent). The neutral YtD national GPH results, coupled with the negative breadth indicator, mean that the more broad unfavorable weather is happening in the lower rounds-producing regions. Year-to-Date, key geographies had generally favorable weather including Southern California (up 4 percent), Phoenix (up 5 percent), Florida (up 3 percent and up 10 percent) while Texas and the Ohio Valley were hampered by unfavorable weather.
Looking back at the previously-reported November weather results vs. the recently-released industry alliance rounds played information (Golf Datatech, NGF, PGA of America and the NGCOA) showed a flat reading for the key measure of percent Utilization Rate (UR) at 52 percent. This means that the negative rounds results (down 7 percent) reported for the month matched the GPH decline of 7 percent previously reported by Pellucid. For the YtD, Utilization Rate still lagged the 2007 year-end mark of 52 percent by 1 point.
"The national picture is the collision of a wide range of favorable and unfavorable local market and state results,” says Pellucid President Jim Koppenhaver. “Not surprisingly, destination markets are taking significant rounds hits that aren't related to weather.”
For example, Vegas is down 9 percent in rounds, but up 2 percent in GPH; Hilton Head is down 14 percent in rounds, but flat in weather. Orlando is an exception to this trend, showing a 3 percent gain in rounds (aided by a 10 percent increase in GPH).
Local mainstay golf geographies like the Midwest, Texas and Northeast are showing rounds declines but most are correlated to modest declines in GPH, Koppenhaver says.
“We're currently working on matching our weather tracking to the market/state geographies reported by industry coalitions in order to provide market-level percent Utilization Rate in 2009, which we'll unveil at the State of the Industry presentation in Orlando later this month,” he says. “As the relatively poor financials for many facilities in 2008 begin to roll in, we're seeing more interest from the economic owners to better understand which of those losses are due to weather impact and which are operationally-driven. The smarter facility operators want to know and quantify that answer before the owners figure it out."
More detail on the results from the national to individual facility level can be obtained through combinations of Pellucid's Weather Impact Analyses: The Regional Weather Impact Tracking report, the Facility 10-year Weather Impact Trend report, the Facility Annual Weather Impact Analysis and the Facility Monthly Weather Impact Tracking report. Facility-level weather impact is now also a component of Pellucid's Initial Facility Analysis offering which provides a 3-D view of local market health, weather impact (both recent and the benchmark 10-year norm) and customer franchise health as a foundation for marketing plan refinements or upcoming annual planning. For more information, visit www.pellucidcorp.com.