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Dear Golf Industry Professional:
Well, both industry shows are in the rear-view mirror and the "good buzz" mantra is in high gear as evidenced by this industry retailer executive's recent comments in a GolfWRX interview: "I don’t want to be falsely optimistic, and certainly there are some things that still need to be fixed, but there’s certainly more positives in golf now than not and the buzz at the PGA Show was great. You know, there were lots of clouds the last few years…but I felt a real positive buzz at the show, more so than I have in many years. I think that bodes well for the game, whether it’s outdoors, or whether they’re coming inside and hitting on simulators, just as long as they’re having fun with a golf club in their hand." Kind of makes me want to channel Brad Pitt in the movie Moneyball: "And you guys just sit around talking the same old "good body" nonsense like we're selling jeans. Like we're looking for Fabio."
For those looking for facts and insights instead of Fabio, our February issue is headlined by dual articles by Stuart Lindsay and Jim Dunlap on the '17 industry media darling, TopGolf. Stuart relates his "secret shopping" experience at TopGolf Orlando during the PGA Show where Pellucid hosted several clients for some food and fun Thursday evening. Jim Dunlap takes a slightly different approach opining that TopGolf may simply be the entryway drug from semi-virtual golf to more and more players "going virtual." While that won't necessarily help our green grass constituents, there may be a silver lining if even a sliver of an increasing number of virtual golfers can be converted (coerced) to reality golf. For the two takes side-by-side, click here:
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pellucid/perspective_201802/
In addition, the February issue covers the following topics in our own inimitable style for the benefit of our loyal readers (critics also always welcome, bring facts please):
- Jim Koppenhaver asks the provocative question, "Do you know what an API is?" and suggests that by the end of 2018 most of you will (or should). As data moves increasingly to the cloud, APIs will be the transportation and "connective tissue" that opens up new possibilities for understanding your business, having better customer relationships and better control over your pricing if you catch the wave.
- Jim Dunlap opines that complaints about slow play may be all the rage after some glaring examples of it on the PGA Tour recently, but he doubts that a few laggards are the real reason why golfers, especially accomplished and avid ones, would quit the game. He contends that the frequent selection of "time" as a prominent reason for not playing the game, or playing less of it, refers to the overall time involved in a round of golf including transportation to and from and perhaps a visit to the 19th afterward, not the difference of a few on-course minutes. See if you agree.
- Plus the monthly Industry Scorecard (the only integrated scorecard of multi-source performance indicators) including the January opening month weather impact results and the December year-end Utilization. We also chart the monthly timeseries for the year of Golf Playable Hours and Utilization while our Market Focus continues with the profile of Chicago IL as this month’s Market Focus which registers as the 17th healthiest of the Top 25 US Golf Markets in our annual ranking.
We recognize and thank our continuing sponsors; KemperSports, Troon Golf, Bayer CropScience and EZLinks Golf. Now that you're either underway or preparing to open for the '18 season, might we suggest, to additional industry stakeholders not in the above list who want to increase their brand exposure and be associated monthly with intelligent discussion on key issues, considering joining our merry little band through our most popular 12-month sponsorship program? (offered at an improved value relative to our entry-level six month sponsorship rate) Twelve-month sponsors also receive all Pellucid industry-standard reports (State of the Industry, Outside the Ropes, Monthly Weather Impact Tracking (Nat'l, Reg'l, Markets), Top 25 US Golf Markets Scorecard and National Golf Consumer Franchise Health Scorecard). Sponsorship provides monthly exposure to approximately 30K industry leaders and followers and associates your brand with Pellucid’s effort to expand intelligent thinking on today's most challenging industry issues. For more "opportunistic" spenders, we might suggest one of our smaller-bite Ad Partner programs for those who may not be able to make a 6 or 12-month commitment (as short as 3 months are now available) or who may not need a half page or more exposure (quarter pages now available). If you're interested in knowing more about sponsorship opportunities or are interested in a preview of our ad partner options, contact Editor-in-Chief Jim Dunlap (760-212-3714, jdgolfer@cox.net).
If you know of associates who would benefit from the topics and insights covered in this issue, feel free to forward this email and encourage them to register on the Pellucid website (http://www.pellucidcorp.com/news/elist) to join the conversation, discussion and debate.
As always, you can review and order any of Pellucid's range of reports and services atwww.pellucidcorp.com. We also want to bring to your attention Pellucid's recently- announced participation in the next generation golf course database, the Internet Golf Course Database (IGDB) with partners Apparation LLC, Never-Search and GolfCourseRanking.com. For more information on this comprehensive database, updated quarterly and refreshed completely every 12 months (all 15K+ US courses), contactjim@pellucidcorp.com. From the numbers and details of how our industry's consumer base is changing at the national level to our individual facility-level services including weather impact (Cognilogic) and market analysis (Golf Local Market Analysis), we'll keep you one step ahead of the competition in this continuing challenging industry landscape.
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