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Dear Golf Industry Professional:
I saw an ad this week in the Wall Street Journal by HBO touting their show this past Tuesday featuring Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson talking about their upcoming pay-per-view showdown. Seriously, will anybody either tune in or subscribe to HBO for a pre-event show with two guys talking about what they're hoping to do in some upcoming match that only slightly more people will watch? Call me a cynic but I think we've just added a new dimension to "the silly season." Meantime, back in the trenches, the northern operators are winterizing and the southern, desert and coastal operators are anticipating their peak season pick up.
This month's lead story by Editor-in-Chief Jim Dunlap outlines a number of operators from a range of geographies and facility types that are having increasing success with simulators at their facilities for incremental revenue and traffic through the clubhouse. As prices moderate and the quality and reliability continue to improve, the numbers are "penciling out" for a wider range of facilities. The other benefit is that this is virtual golf that keeps golfers tied to the facility and is primarily geared to the existing golfer vs. the TopGolf model which, as best we can tell, is actually cannibalizing rounds by existing golfers and not producing any appreciable player development growth. For this and the rest of the stories, click below:
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/pellucid/perspective_201811/
In addition, the November issue covers the following unique and novel topics which have become the Perspective hallmark:
- Publisher Jim Koppenhaver looks at the latest initiative endeavoring to "save the industry" called SKYiGOLF which had their inaugural press conference on 10/30 at the World Golf Village and is PGA Professional Rich Smith's brainchild to connect multiple program elements which he touts as "built by PGA Professionals, for PGA Professionals." At least there wasn't a mic-grabbing confrontation and no one got their press pass revoked in St. Augustine...
- Contributing Editor Stuart Lindsay takes a light-hearted look at the latest Golf Digest annual reader survey where they ask germane questions like "Have you ever smoked marijuana during a round?" as well as delving into the political inclinations of avid golfers and how it affects their playing partners and course conversations. Adds a new twist to the concept of "the greatest show on grass."
- Plus the monthly Industry Scorecard (the only integrated scorecard of multi-source performance indicators) including the October weather impact results (down unfortunately) and the September YtD Utilization (down again but still slightly up for the year). We also chart the monthly timeseries for the year of Golf Playable Hours and Utilization while our Market Focus continues with the profile of New York, NY as this month’s Market Focus which registers as the 12th healthiest of the Top 25 US Golf Markets in our annual ranking.
We recognize and thank our continuing sponsors; KemperSports, Troon Golf, Bayer CropScience, EZLinks Golf. For all those service providers and suppliers to the golf industry out there with the latest-and-greatest to offer to the industry thought-leaders who read our monthly publication, might we suggest considering joining our merry little band through our most popular 12-month sponsorship program? (offered at an improved value relative to our entry-level six month sponsorship rate) Twelve-month sponsors also receive all Pellucid industry-standard reports (State of the Industry, Outside the Ropes, Monthly Weather Impact Tracking (Nat'l, Reg'l, Markets), Top 25 US Golf Markets Scorecard and National Golf Consumer Franchise Health Scorecard). Sponsorship provides monthly exposure to approximately 30K industry leaders and followers and associates your brand with Pellucid’s effort to expand intelligent thinking on today's most challenging industry issues. For more "opportunistic" spenders, we might suggest one of our smaller-bite Ad Partner programs for those who may not be able to make a 6 or 12-month commitment (as short as 3 months are now available) or who may not need a half page or more exposure (quarter pages now available). If you're interested in knowing more about sponsorship opportunities or are interested in a preview of our ad partner options, contact Editor-in-Chief Jim Dunlap (760-212-3714, jdgolfer@cox.net).
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 conversation, discussion and debate.
We also want to bring to your attention Pellucid's next generation golf course database, the Internet Golf Course Database (IGDB) with partners Apparation LLC, Never-Search and GolfCourseRanking.com. We've just completed a manual review of thousands of facilities against the industry's legacy facility database provider and found hundreds of discrepancies in the existence of facilities (they're missing quite a few of the Learning & Practice facilities across the US & they're still carrying 100+ closed facilities), address errors and facility name errors. While no database will ever be 100% accurate, we were surprised at the quantity and range of inconsistencies as well as the fact that most of the major tee time providers and recommendation sites (like GolfAdvisor) are propagating these phantom facilities and errors 5-10 fold for people doing Google searches online. Talk about an "echo chamber"... For more information on our comprehensive database, updated quarterly and refreshed completely every 12 months (all 15K+ US courses), contact jim@pellucidcorp.com
As always, you can review and order any of Pellucid's range of reports and services at www.pellucidcorp.com. From the numbers and details of how our industry's consumer base is changing at the national level to our individual facility-level services including weather impact (Cognilogic) and market analysis (Golf Local Market Analysis), we'll keep you one step ahead of the competition in this continuing challenging industry landscape.
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