As the post-COVID continued trend toward higher annual rounds appears to be peaking as a result of “current causes,” it raises the question of “How can we now drive further growth instead of just reacting to our resurgent golf is cool again fortunes?” In August of last year I wrote an article outlining how skill development is such an opportunity that we could have control over in the form of aiming to improve the average score of golfers by 1 stroke in any given year. Two intervening events have made me re-think the challenge and impact of skill development so I’ll take the opportunity here to propose my refined thinking on the matter for our subscribers; here’s the discussion flight plan:
- Are enough golfers taking lessons annually to make a 1 stroke improvement for the average golfer (nationally) mathematically possible?
- How might digital golf (digital ranges and simulators (both on and off-premise)) be changing the equation?
- Are we tracking instruction close enough (at all?) to be able to measure change, effectiveness and post-instruction economic impact of the PGA Pros on their facility?
The two inspirations for better thinking were a recently-released NGF study showing the levels and trends of golf instruction post-COVID (full disclosure, Pellucid is an NGF member so we didn’t purloin the data; we actually pay annually for the nuggets of data of interest to complement our extensive repository and tools) and a recent PGA presentation Stuart and I did where we outlined a path to track the follow-on spending of lesson takers at the “host” facilities. I went so far as to say that if we could even directionally and magnitudinally (is that a word?) quantify this and it were worth 5-figures annually to the facility, a reasonable business person would likely ask for a “cut” (not as many head nods on that one but I definitely got them thinking about that logical conclusion). For our subscribers, read on for the full Monty; for our casual observers, you can join the World of Pellucid and start that journey (with this issue) one of three ways:
- Subscribe to the Pellucid Publications Membership for $495/yr (most comprehensive coverage & detail) – Annual subscribers get access to the following:
- Outside the Ropes monthly digital newsletter (including this issue for starters!)
- Annual State of the Industry report portfolio (PowerPoint presentation, PDF commentary report, access to Jim/Stuart video of presentation)
- Geographic Weather Impact Tracking (US, 45 regions, 61 markets) or Cognilogic for Golf Playable Hours/Capacity Rounds for individual facilities
- National Consumer Franchise Health Scorecard (expanded data and tables underlying this issue’s summary figures)
- Subscribe to OtR, 12 monthly issues for $250/yr. Subscribers also get access to the historical archive of past issues (last two years) via the members-only section of the Pellucid website
- Subscribe to Golf Market Research Center (for operators wanting a combination of insights and action tools) – In addition to an OtR subscription (hence, this issue), you’ll get the State of the Industry presentation along with the full suite of Performance Tracking reports and weather impact services (Cognilogic for historical Golf Playable Hours/Capacity Rds, Foresight for the 60-day forecast for your facility location for Capacity Rds and daily key weather forecast variables)
As always, samples of all our publications, reports and services are available on the Reports and Services pages of the Pellucid website. Thanks for your continued support as an OtR subscriber!
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