February's weather backed off slightly compared to last year after January's solid, positive start, Pellucid reports. At the national level, February's "golf playable hours" (GPH) were off 1.8 percent compared to the same period last year. Following January's increase in GPH of just under 3 percent, the February dip brings the year-to-date (YTD) weather impact back to neutral (+0.3 percent).
The regional breadth ratio (measured as the number of regions up compared against the number of regions down) continued in neutral territory at 1:1. Refining its methodology, for the first quarter Pellucid is only tracking the "open" regions in the breadth measure. This results in a scorecard of six regions showing GPH gains for the year of 2 percent or more opposed by sic regions with GPH decreases of 2 percent or more (leaving the remaining six "open" regions in neutral territory and 27 regions not open for business yet).
This suggests that the opening two months of the year at a national level in GPH and regional breadth are "steady as she goes." Looking at the regional map of weather "winners" and "losers" through February shows Texas continuing to be smiled upon while Mother Nature has thus far frowned on the Atlantic and Pacific NW Coastal areas.
Looking back at the previously reported January weather results vs. the recently released industry alliance rounds played information provides some good news (for a change). Even though weather was a positive factor for the month (GPH + 3 percent vs. year ago), the solid rounds gain of nearly 9 percent means that we beat the weather at the national level. This results in a significant gain for the key measure of percent utilization rate (UR) to 51 percent for the month vs. the 2008 benchmark rate of 49 percent. Pellucid is also introducing a key market weather and utilization report that provides monthly updates on these two measures across 40-plus U.S. markets. As a sneak preview, Los Angeles County and Orange County were market winners with increased utilization while Atlanta was a notable loser in January.
"It's still early in the game but, compared to Bernie Madoff going to jail and GM going out of business, we're the epitome of health right now," Pellucid President Jim Koppenhaver says. "The full-year forecast calls for national GPH to be down 3 percent so there's still choppy water ahead as it relates to weather (unless we and our weather partner blow the forecast).
"The headlines on January's results though are, 'Weather was good, we were better.' PerformanceTrak is showing that median revenue per round played was statistically flat which suggests we didn't necessarily buy those rounds results either. Overall, if each of our data points is accurate, there's nothing to not like yet at the national level (standard disclaimer, national results are not necessarily indicative of local market results, your mileage may vary)."
