November weather offset October's dramatic decline and then some as Golf Playable Hours (GPH) were up 36 percent for the Total US vs. November 2008. That created a meaningful upward swing in the GPH Year-to-Date (YTD) results moving it up by almost 2 full points to +1% at the end of November.
The superior golf weather was widespread as 27 of 45 regions showed significant increases. This nudged the YTD breadth ratio (measured as # of regions up compared against # of regions down) up slightly but it remains negative at the close of the month at 1:1.2. This is comprised of 11 regions up vs. 13 down with the remaining 21 weather-based regions recording neutral results (+/-2 percent with all 45 regions still "in play"). Leading the "weather favorable" key rounds-contribution regions for the November YtD period are Mid Continental, Ohio Valley (North, Central and South) and PA West with GPH favorability of 5 percent +. On the "weather challenged" side of the ledger, only two key rounds regions remain in the GPH deficit range of 3 percent + for the year, Florida North and Gulf Coast.
Looking back at the previously-reported October weather results vs. the industry alliance rounds played, the Utilization Rate (UR) took a dive registering 45 percent or a drop of 3 points for the month (comprised of a 16 percent decrease in rounds demand against a 10 percent GPH decline for the month). Pellucid's Market-Level Weather Impact tracking identifies the biggest gainers and losers in percent Utilization Rate for 61 markets/states/state groups. The market-level breadth for the October YtD period shows 9 geographies up compared to 13 down and 39 in the neutral zone producing a slightly negative market-level breadth ratio of 1:1.4. Leading the "utilization winners" are San Antonio and Houston while Hawaii and Utah continue to top the "utilization losers" list.
Pellucid President Jim Koppenhaver comments on the current results saying, "November's weather results will probably go down in history as "a lot but too late" for most geographies. I'll be surprised frankly if we see rounds increases in excess of 10 percent for the month nationally which will produce another drop in utilization. It's not that we're bad operators, it's just that great weather that late into the season for the northern climates has not historically been rewarded by golfers with significant increases in play. Part of the reason is increased competition for weekend interest (i.e. college and pro football, school activities etc.) and I suspect the other is just apathy and fatigue (or both). We'll see when the rounds results come out what we were able generate based on an incredible weather opportunity month. Looking back on October, I had predicted, based on the GPH results, that we would be doing well to hold utilization (i.e. a 10 percent drop in rounds demand) and, unfortunately, even I was too optimistic. In the pre-Pellucid days, we would have chalked up all of Oct.'s 16 percent decrease in rounds played to bad weather but in today's "enlightened" world, we can say that the majority of our decrease was weather-related but a meaningful portion was not. That creates a see-saw pattern in utilization for the last two months; in September we were able to produce organic rounds growth but we could not sustain that momentum in October even after factoring out a poor weather month. The summary good news however is that, with 11 months behind us and only trailing 2008 by 1 percent in rounds demand at the national level, golf will outperform most every other US industry with topline volume results that aren't down by double-digits."
"Consistent with our client trends, PGA PerformanceTrak's October YtD Executive Summary continues to show a 5 percent decline in Median Golf Fee Revenue driven by a 3 percent decrease in Median Golf Fee Revenue per Round (rate) and slightly negative rounds demand (volume). The Resort segment continues to be the hardest hit on volume, rate and revenue measures showing down 5 percent, 9 percent and 14 percent respectively for the YTD period."
