January's weather started in positive territory for those regions above freezing and snowless, according to golf industry research firm Pellucid. At the national level, January's Golf Playable Hours (GPH) were up 3 percent compared to the same period last year.
The regional breadth ratio (measured as the number of regions up compared to the number of regions down) started in neutral territory at 1:1.1. This is comprised of 11 regions showing GPH gains for the year of 2 percent or more opposed by 12 regions with GPH decreases of 2 percent or more (the remaining 22 regions either are in the neutral zone of +/- 2 percent or not open for business yet). This paints a relatively balanced picture of positive GPH on neutral breadth (in other words, positive regions produce slightly more rounds than the negative regions). Year-to-Date, key winter geographies of Northern Floriday and Northern California fared well while the southeastern seaboard continued its unfavorable 2008 weather streak.
The previously reported December weather results vs. the recently released industry alliance rounds-played information shows a slight gain for the key measure of percent Utilization Rate (UR) at 52.5 percent. This means that the negative rounds results (down 7 percent) reported for the month were slightly better than the GPH decline of 8 percent previously reported by Pellucid. For the YtD, the UR held its own, finishing only fractions of a point below the 2007 year-end mark of 52 percent.
"There's not much to say about the January results, other than it's one notch in the ‘win’ column, which we'll take,” says Pellucid president Jim Koppenhaver. “Looking back at the December results, while dropping 7 percent in rounds isn't the desired outcome, the fact that those results simply mirrored weather are reason to stay the course on programs and marketing plans through Q1 of 2009 vs. panicking and changing course. It was also interesting to note that the industry alliance rounds results were slightly more pessimistic than the PGA of America PerformanceTrak results (down 2 percent vs. down 1 percent). The other interesting observation on the PerformanceTrak results is that they showed the average 18-hole velocity to come in for the year at 28,000 rounds which seems light relative to historical calculations that would put that number closer to 33,000 rounds per 18-hole equivalent.”
More detail on the results from 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. For more information, visit, www.pellucidcorp.com.