May was amazingly flat for Golf Playable Hours (GPH) compared to 2008, Pellucid reports. At the national level, May's GPH were up 0.5 percent compared to the same period last year. That keeps the Year-to-Date (Ytd) weather impact in the neutral zone at +1 percent vs. the same period in 2008.
Encouragingly, the YtD regional breadth ratio (measured as the number of regions up compared to the number of regions down) increased its positive bent to 1.8:1. This is comprised of 21 regions up vs. 12 down with the remaining 12 weather-based regions recording neutral results (+/-2 percent, all 45 regions are "in play" for May). Among the key rounds-contributing regions for the May YtD period, five of them have had significantly favorable weather (up 10%+ in GPH) led by Pennsylvania West and Ohio Valley (North & South). Significantly unfavorable YtD weather trends (down 10 percent-plus) persist among only two key regions, East Pennsylvania/New York/New Jersey and Great Lakes West.
Looking back at the previously reported March weather results vs. the industry alliance rounds played shows that the Percent Utilization Rate (UR) in April showed nice strength increasing to 51 percent or a gain of just over 2 points vs. the 2008 national annual benchmark. Breaking this down, we saw a 1 percent increase in rounds against a 3 percent decrease in GPH which suggests we were able to eke out a small rounds demand gain in unfavorable national weather. Pellucid's April market-level Percent Utilization tracking quantifies the diverse results at local level from the Rounds Up/Utilization Up individual markets (Minneapolis, Dallas etc.) to the Rounds Down/Utilization Down locations (Hawaii, Orlando, etc.).
"While we saw some nice trends in weather favorability across regions, unfortunately it was in our lower rounds impact areas, hence the national flatness,” Pellucid President Jim Koppenhaver says. “The April Utilization gain was at least one indicator that the industry isn't completely at the mercy of Mother Nature as we were able to hold our own against a 3 percent drop in GPH vs. last year. The relatively new market-level reporting of Utilization is helping us answer an important question for ‘down’ travel markets like Hawaii and Orlando which is, ‘How much of that decline is weather-related and how much is the current macro, travel and corporate entertainment economics?’ I'm sad to report that, contrary to the industry's standard response, it's not the weather in most of those markets.
“One final point, Pellucid also compiles monthly for our Weather Impact clients the results from PGA PerformanceTrak and April's Median Green Fee Revenue metric again showed a double-digit decline vs. YA suggesting that we either continue to "buy" some portion of our rounds demand results or that the consumers are simply switching their play habits to different, lower-price playing times – this produces the effect of ‘discounting’ but not because we're actively promoting discounts.”