Hello golf stakeholders:
Welcome to 2026 and the start of our 17th year in publication; hope that everyone had a relaxing and enjoyable holiday period and a fun, safe celebration to ring in the New Year. We’re now only a week away from the unofficial start of the industry ’26 business cycle represented by the co-located and adjacent timing PGA Merchandise Show and the Golf Business Conference in Orlando. We’ll be speaking on the ’25 State of the Industry (SoI) at both GBC (short version, Tue 1/20 at 9:45AM for attendees) and in our perennial date/time slot for the PGA Show, which is Thu 1/22 from 1:30-3PM (full Monty (content, not clothes), version. You can register to attend the latter here or, if you’re not going to be in Orlando, we’ll also be webcasting it live as well and you can register here for that. The PGA of America has once again agreed to crediting 2 PDRs to members who attend either way and provide us their member number for us to submit to Frisco.
Contributing Editor Stuart Lindsay has the lead this month with an insider view of a recent golf course sale by the original owner who survived the ups-and-downs of 25 years running a premium course beyond the Boston suburbs getting a good valuation and handing over a well-run property with upside potential for the new owners (along with Stuart’s advice for some of those areas of opportunity if they’re reading this). He also uses it though as a cautionary tale given that we’re seeing valuations escalate from private equity in tandem with signs of an industry plateau which could be a future pain in the posterior in select situations.
Publisher Jim K. discusses ’25 year-end performance using Pellucid’s proprietary and exclusive scorecard of metrics combining golf revenue, rounds, rates, supply, weather, golfers etc. offering just a peek of what’s in store for the SoI “reveal” in Orlando. The high-level read is that several of the Key Performance Indicators moved from positive trend to neutral in ’25 which is the basis for our belief that we’re near or at a plateau in the current cycle. There’s more upside to be had for intelligent operators and that will be core to both his and Stuart’s sage observations and advice when the faithful gather in Orlando (or online) next week.
See below for the headlines to each of our recurring sections from the regional December weather impact (another single-digits downer, ouch) to By-the-Numbers which provides the November and Year-to-Date results for Rounds (month up/YtD slightly up) and Utilization (both up). We’ve already compiled the December golf operations performance scorecard “preview”, courtesy of our Golf Market Research Center (GMRC) early-responders, and the sneak peek suggests that Rounds might have again been actually flat which would produce another (surprising) healthy up in Utilization. If you want to know those numbers on a regular basis, you can either participate in GMRC (course operators) or sign up for a Publications Membership (everyone else).
SUCCESS STORIES
2 Blackstone National plots path to 25-year profitable exit
By Stuart Lindsay
YEAR-END RECAP
7 Another record in ’25 but…signs of slowing growth
By Jim Koppehaver
COMINGS & GOINGS
12 Solid Dec. activity (10 tracked); Transactions (6) and off-season closures (4)
WEATHER IMPACT
14 Dec. registers 3rd consecutive decline at -7% GPH, Year-to-Date slips to -2%
BY-THE-NUMBERS
16 Nov. Utilization jumps to +8 pts, Year-to-Date holds steady at +2 pts
MARKET FOCUS
18 Santa Barbara, CA weight in at #20 in Market Strength, golf strong in the American Riviera
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 discussion and healthy debate.