Pellucid’s annual summary of Golf Consumer Franchise Health released this week shows the erosion of the golfer base continued for a 2nd consecutive year in 2003. The report also highlights that this decline was spread across a wide range of the consumer subgroups (males/females, adults/juniors, age and HH income groups etc.) vs. being confined to just a few constituencies.
“Overall it’s a pretty sobering picture as we continued to experience the loss of almost 1M golfers annually and the total number of participants retreating to under 26M,” explains Pellucid President Jim Koppenhaver whose company compiled the results and completed the analysis. “Given the number and magnitude of grow-the-game initiatives implemented since the inaugural Golf 20/20 Conference, we were hopeful that some of the targeted subgroups like juniors and women would show significant increases in participation but the facts didn’t support those hopes.”
In the Golf Consumer Franchise Health Analysis, Pellucid continues to advance the idea of Play Rate (consumer survey reported rounds per capita) as the key annual tracking measure. The Play Rate captures changes in the three underlying indicators (population, participation rate and frequency rate (rounds per golfer)) summarized in one measure.
The highlights below outline how the Play Rate change can then be “decomposed” into changes in the component measures to determine what is driving the Play Rate decline:
• Play Rate declined over 8% in 2003 to 1.96 rds/capita
• The number of golfers declined by over 3% driven by a 1+% gain in population offset by a 4% decline in the participation rate
• Frequency declined by just over 4% to roughly 22 rounds per golfer per year
• Net, every underlying indicator was negative for the year except raw population growth
Not surprisingly, the findings are at odds with consistent and widespread industry assertions that golf is definitely not in decline. Pellucid’s analysis conducted across a large sample of demographically and geographically balanced US HHs for the third consecutive year provides an independent, fact-based evaluation for industry scrutiny.
Koppenhaver concludes, “Contrary to industry perception, we’re not of the opinion that the sky is falling on golf. Rather, we believe the golf consumer base is looking for a “support point” after retreating from steady consumer growth during the 1980s that peaked in the 1990s. When the consumer franchise reaches this support point, history would suggest that the consumer base will once again grow, it’s just that we currently don’t know where that support point is, how long it will take us to get there and how much it may grow in the next cycle.”
Pellucid is a privately-held, independent information and insight provider for the golf industry. Since 2001, Pellucid has brought non-golf information approaches, measures and a fresh perspective to the golf industry.
More information and pricing on the Golf Consumer Franchise Health Analysis (25 pages, Word format including graphs and tables) can be obtained by contacting Jim Koppenhaver (847.808.7651 or jimk@pellucidcorp.com). Information on Pellucid’s other industry-leading work in Local Market Analysis and Customer Franchise Analysis as well as their bi-weekly, paid subscriber newsletter, Outside The Ropes, is available by visiting www.pellucidcorp.com.
