January weather results were overall "red" as the change in Available Rounds for the month was -33% at the national level vs. Year Ago (YA).  That also becomes the Year-to-Date (YtD) starting the new year out in negative territory.  In regional breadth, we had a relatively balanced distribution of gainers vs. losers at 1:1 with 10 weather-favorable regions countered by 13 weather-unfavorable regions (1 in-season region was in the neutral zone of +/- 2% and the remaining 21 regions are out-of-season).  Looking at weather impact performance by day-of-week, the unfavorability registered across all days with the weekdays being slightly more negative than the weekends.  With 11 months of the season yet to play, it's still way too early to panic but Pellucid subscribers already know our weather impact "call" for the year contained in their January report and also in our recently-published State of the Industry presentation. If you'd like to join them in being in-the-know regarding where weather impact will likely land for the full year nationally and by our 45 weather-based regions, subscribe to the monthly Geographic Weather Impact report or our Cognilogic web-based information service by following the instructions and links at the end of this article.

Played Rounds data for December published by Golf Datatech showed a favorable finish to the year at +4% but that trailed our previously-published Golf Playable Hours (GPH) results of +8% producing a Utilization Rate decline for the month.  For the YtD period, the December Utilization decline inflicted minimal damage as we finished with a 1 point drop for the year.  Figures for the month at the National and 61 key Markets level (including Pellucid's designated Top 25 markets) are also available to Pellucid Publications members and Geographic Weather Impact report subscribers.

Jim Koppenhaver comments, "January was an odd month reviewing the map in that we had sizeable unfavorability in Available Rounds in the aggregate but the regional breadth was relatively balanced which simply means that the "decliner" regions were more severe in their losses than the "gainers".  Looking at the map, the SE Coast, FL and the Gulf Coast geographies all had weather declines while TX, the Desert SW and the West Coast all registered weather gains. Looking back to the December results for YtD Utilization at the 61 markets level, we finished with the majority of markets (38 of 61) in the neutral zone (rounds followed weather) but market breadth among the non-neutrals finished negative with 13 markets declining in Utilization against 10 gainers.  Among Pellucid's Top 25 US Golf Markets for the YtD period, Miami (#14) did finish as the year's Utilization gain leader (> 3 point gain) while Minneapolis (#22) earned the crown for the largest laggard but San Francisco (#4) made a late surge and lost 4 points of Utilization as well to finish in close 2nd.  Both markets experienced rounds losses of >5% against basically flat weather en route to their Utilization declines."

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 2/15/18.

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.