Channeling Stuart Lindsay's adage that "Golfers are more like bears than squirrels," March provided hibernation-conducive weather as Golf Playable Hours (GPH) came in significantly down (-46%) vs. Year Ago (YA) at the national level. For the Year-to-Period (YTD), the GPH comparative measure now stands at -32%. For the YTD period at the national level that is comprised of a breadth ratio of 1:2 with 5 regions having favorable weather against 11 regions with unfavorable weather (5 regions are in the neutral zone of +/- 2% and the remaining 24 regions are out-of-season). Looking at YTD weather impact performance by day-of-week, the unfavorable weather continued the trend of being slightly more skewed to weekdays vs. weekends. For the full-year forecast, our March update deteriorated further meaning the year-to-year weather comparison will give back all of the 2012 favorability.....and then some. The values for the above two metrics, the monthly time series for the entire year as well as market-level Utilization for the preceding month are available to Pellucid Publications Members via the Client Login section at the Pellucid website (go to www.pellucidcorp.com for information or to subscribe).

Looking back on February rounds played (as reported by PerformanceTrak) to calculate the facility % Utilization Rate (UR), rounds demand (-10%) outperformed the unfavorable comparative weather (-14%) resulting in a UR level for the month of 54% which is 3 points higher than the benchmark 2012 year-end value of 51%. For the YtD period the trend is similar with rounds declines (-11%) slightly less than the unfavorable comparative weather (-13%) producing a UR of 53% or up 1 point vs. 2012 year-end (it's decimal rounding for those of you doing the math on the difference).

Jim Koppenhaver comments, "I have to look really hard to find the "green numbers" positive YTD weather variance in the March tables. Most of the green weather geography belongs to Blue States, confined to the Pacific Northwest (which didn't get the big 2012 lift for reference) and the various parts of the state of California. Outside that, we had significantly worse (but a return to normal after the abnormal March 2012) weather in all the northern climates. The slightly unusual and unfavorable variation I didn't see coming was that the Southeast, the Southwest and Texas also had less favorable weather than 2012. So, when a substantial portion of your 12-month geographies get less favorable weather and you pile on the virtual absence of any March golf weather in the northern climates you're going to get something in the neighborhood of a rounds drop exceeding 25% for the month of March and most probably weighing in at -20% or better for the YTD (ouch)! The silver lining, looking back to the February Utilization Rate, is that rounds declines aren't matching the weather decline so we're seeing a slightly encouraging sign in the UR rate increases (i.e. our factories are being slightly more productive than last year through February). The other mitigating factor is that the full year forecast for GPH is not nearly as precipitous a drop so we'll recover a decent portion of that decline as the season evolves and we get more daylight hours and a bigger base of GPH and rounds (if you want Pellucid's call on how much we'll recover, see the opening paragraph above)."

On the Golf Fee Revenue (GFR) side via the February YTD PGA PerformanceTrak numbers, they're reporting -8% for Median Total Revenue (slightly better than the 11% rounds decline which means GF rate-per-played-round was up 3%; this relationship doesn't seem to ever move in the PGA universe, very similar to the Performance Factor where rounds never stray from the Days Open figure). Inferring Revenue per Available Round (RevpAR, or the revenue efficiency of our "factories") by comparing the YTD GFR decline (-8%) against the GPH decline (-13%) suggests that RevpAR is up meaningfully (+5%) vs. year ago.

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 http://www.pellucidcorp.com/news/elist, fill in the information and you will be registered for the next edition on 4/15/13.

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 can subscribe to the Pellucid Publications Membership (Outside the Ropes monthly newsletter, 2012 State of the Industry, Monthly Weather Impact and Top 25 Golf Markets reports) for $495 annually. 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 12 month tracking or $120 for a single year-end report. For more information, contact Stuart Lindsay of Edgehill Golf Advisors (edgehillgolf@msn.com). You can now order either of the above information services via Pellucid's online store at http://www.pellucidcorp.com/purchase-reports/online-store.