Hello golf stakeholders:
First and foremost we want to wish everyone a (n early) Happy Thanksgiving as that holiday approaches and the golf industry, at least in the north, takes a welcome break between now and the ’26 PGA Show. Hey, did anyone else notice that they removed Merchandise from the name? Was this the first year? (if not, I must’ve been napping) Since our last issue, the golf media folks and the PGA TOUR have invented another off-season, made-for-TV “competition” in the form of The Optum Golf Channel Games. In the words of Monty Python, “And now, for something completely different.”
Contributing Editor Stuart Lindsay leads for the 3rd month in a row (Jim needs to up his game) by taking us back to 1998 and a Forbes magazine cover article headlined by “Artificial Intelligence Gets Real.” While not pooh-poohing the potential and range of applications for AI to rock our world, he reminds us that the intellectuals in the US have been at this a while and, based on Forbes’ assessment, it took 27 years to actually “get real.” Things like AI-based search for tee times would seem to hold great promise for golfers (and facilities if harnessed properly and guardrails established) while other applications like AI handling all your inbound phone reservations is a little bit murkier around the questions of “Do you want to cut off your customer from any personal interaction?” and “Will they pay $2.50 for any reservation at your golf course?” (not just the AI ones) etc. Inquiring minds want to know and, while we don’t have the answers yet, we’re predicting it’s not going to be a smooth and immediate path to “bright”.
Publisher Jim K. takes aim at a growing industry narrative that the Private golf sector is significantly outperforming the Public sector and, thus, powering the industry to new heights. He points out that while the number of Private club members has increased at a healthy pace post-COVID, the rounds and holes of supply haven’t increased significantly so we’re basically putting more bodies into the same space and having them compete for only slightly higher rounds (which means…their average frequency is going down). Final point is that Private historically only accounts for ~20% of US rounds so how much does the minority contributor to rounds have to grow to influence the majority Public figures? (answer: a lot)
See below for the headlines to each of our recurring sections from the regional October weather impact (big downer, ouch) to By-the-Numbers which provides the September and Year-to-Date results for Rounds (both modestly up) and Utilization (down month, up YtD). We’ve already compiled the October golf operations performance scorecard “preview”, courtesy of our Golf Market Research Center (GMRC) early-responders, and the sneak peek suggests that Rounds didn’t crash as hard as the weather which should produce another month of (slight) Utilization gain. 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).
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.
We also continue to spread the word on Pellucid’s next-generation golf course database. The Internet Golf Database (IGDB), provided by Apparation LLC, is the industry’s most complete, accurate, accessible and useful golf industry directory. IGDB, along with Pellucid’s proprietary extensions, powers Pellucid’s Golf Local Market Analyzer, the Top 25 US Golf Markets Scorecard and the GMRC. For more information on high-value IGDB subscriptions options, contact Apparation at mike.dickoff@apparationllc.com.
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