It appears that the summer of '18 is turning out, weather-wise, to be a near carbon copy of '17 at the national level as August Golf Playable Hour (GPH) results again registered a fractional decline (-0.1%) vs. Year Ago (YA).  The optimist will say that sideways isn't all bad and flat weather impact continues to chip away at the Year-to-Date (YtD) deficit which dropped by another point to -6% comparatively.  For the less-than-optimistic, we'll toss in the fact that, versus the 10-yr Norm, the August results were -6% (ouch).  In regional breadth for the YtD period, the unfavorability was relatively unchanged from July with a favorable/unfavorable breadth ratio of 1:4 with 8 weather-favorable regions countered by 30 weather-unfavorable regions (remaining 7 regions are in the neutral zone of +/- 2%).  Looking at weather impact performance by day-of-week for the YtD period, the deficit continues to be relatively balanced between weekdays and weekends while, within the weekend dayparts, we do see a meaningful dichotomy looking at Saturday vs. Sunday weather (results by day-of-week and the figures for weekday and weekend available to Pellucid subscribers).  The year-end forecast decayed slightly vs. July's look into our crystal ball.  Pellucid subscribers know what that number is and whether we'll gain back any of the lost weather ground in the remaining months of the year.  If you'd like to join them in being in-the-know regarding those important details and having early-warning guidance for marketing and expense decisions, subscribe to the monthly Geographic Weather Impact report or our Cognilogic facility-level web-based information service by following the instructions and links at the end of this article.

Played Rounds data for July published by Golf Datatech continued the "sideways" story when looked at in isolation registering -2% for the month vs. YA.  The more insightful view, after factoring in weather, is that Utilization was again off slightly due to Pellucid's previously-reported "flat" weather for the month.  For the YtD period, Utilization continues to be favorable driven by smaller declines in Played Rounds vs. the decline in Available Rounds.  Beneath this national picture, there are winners and losers in both Played Rounds and Utilization Rates among the 61 key Markets (including Pellucid's designated Top 25 markets) and this next-level-detail of results is also available to Pellucid Publications members and Geographic Weather Impact report subscribers.

Jim Koppenhaver comments, "In August we generally see moderation in the year-to-year comparisons at the national level but a regional level there were double-digit gains in GPH for the month (TX South, FL North, Central CA Valley North) as well as similar magnitude declines (HI, Rocky Mountains).  These more detailed regional, state and market views become more important over the summer to see where the individual "winners and losers" are.  For the YtD period, there are still very few green arrows on our weather map with majority of those being in the NW and CA regions.  Looking at July YtD results for Utilization at the 61 markets level, we continue the pattern of favorable breadth to gainers as rounds declines are shallower than weather unfavorability.  The market breadth indicator deteriorated significantly to 5:1 (26 markets showing Utilization gains against 5 markets showing declines with the remaining 30 occupying the neutral zone).  Among Pellucid's Top 25 US Golf Markets for the YtD period, 12 continue to show Utilization gains with Phoenix, Denver and Cincinnati leading the pack with 5+ point gains.  Again, if you want to know which of our Top 25 Golf Markets posted Utilization gains, how much and what the dynamics are behind those gains, just go to our website and get on the Monthly Weather Impact subscription or sign up for Cognilogic (facility-level access via the web)."

A broader and more detailed scorecard of the monthly key industry metrics can be found in Pellucid’s free digital magazine, The Pellucid Perspective. To register to get the current and future editions, go to www.pellucidcorp.com/news/elist, fill in the information and you'll be registered for the next edition on 9/15/18.

Intelligent, curious and courageous industry stakeholders wanting the detailed metrics and monthly updates on weather impact at the national, regional and market level as well as utilization and the full year forecast numbers have two subscription options:

For individual facility owner/operators who need facility-level history, current year results by month and day-of-week and full year forecast data, Pellucid/Edgehill’s self-serve, web-delivered, real-time weather impact service product, Cognilogic, is your answer.  It’s available for $240 for the year-end report and unlimited annual access via the Cognilogic web portal or $120 for a single year-end report.  For more information, contact Stuart Lindsay of Edgehill Golf Advisors (edgehillgolf@msn.com) or click here Order Cognilogic.

You can order any of the above information services via Pellucid's Online Store.

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