When comparing things, it’s crucial to make an apples-to-apples evaluation whenever possible.
Any statistician — or apple buyer, for that matter — knows as much.
That’s what makes the Colorado public golf course Rounds and Revenue Survey, which is compiled by the CGA, an interesting piece of data.
On the one hand, it’s a useful snapshot of what is happening at Colorado public courses on a year-to-year basis. On the other hand, the survey itself obviously doesn’t tell the whole story.
Such is certainly the case this year. The survey points out the fact that, over the first two-thirds of 2013, rounds and green-fee revenue at Colorado public courses dropped on average compared to the same period in 2012. But the “why” is crucial in making use of the numbers.
After good weather in 2012 yielded more than the usual number of playable days for golfers, 2013 hasn’t been nearly as nice to golf operators. April and May were unusually wet, and while the rounds and revenue survey accounts for only January through the end of August, the mid-September rain and flooding were another major setback. That’s not only from the standpoint that several courses sustained major damage, but because of lost business during the prolonged rainy period — and possibly beyond, depending on the course.
The bottom line was this in the report shared Wednesday at the public golf operators meeting held at Lone Tree Golf Club: In the first eight months of the year, rounds at the 76 public courses that responded to the survey were down an average of 8.8 percent compared to the same period in 2012. And green-free revenue dropped about 7 percent on average.
“Last year’s weather was perfect. This year’s weather has been terrible, so I think everybody has learned to adapt,” said Eddie Ainsworth, executive director of the Colorado PGA.
Added CGA executive director Ed Mate: “Last year was an outlier year. That really exacerbated the difference between 2012 and ’13.
“As I say every year, it’s the same number of golfers playing on — fortunately — the same number of courses whatever number of rounds that are available to them based on weather. There’s the same number of golfers, and the same amount of inventory (number of golf courses) the last five years. The only thing that changes year-to-year is weather.”
Proving the point about 2012 being abnormally good, weather-wise, is that when comparing the first eight months of 2013 to the average of the last five years, the decline in rounds was far less pronounced, generally speaking.
“From everybody I’ve heard and talked to at different golf courses, in some cases rounds are down but revenue has been pretty good,” Ainsworth said. “They’ve made the necessary adjustments in managing their facilities, so I think net they’re pretty good.
“Everybody was making a strong comeback from the bad spring we had until we had all that rain in September.”
While officials from most of the courses represented at Wednesday’s meeting indicated that they experienced less than five days of interruption of business due to the torrential rainfall, some courses — such as Coal Creek, CommonGround and Mariana Butte — have sustained considerable damage because of flooding. Coal Creek is closed indefinitely and CommonGround and Mariana Butte have less than 18 holes open.
Meanwhile, another public facility, the nine-hole par-3 course at Centre Hills in Aurora, closed as of Sept. 30 because it was no longer financially viable for Aurora Golf to keep it open.
While the ups and downs of the weather can’t be controlled, golf leaders like Mate and Ainsworth are generally optimistic over the long haul because they’re confident that “growth of the game” initiatives that continue to be implemented will eventually pay dividends.
Mate was particular encouraged when several operators of multiple courses indicated Wednesday that they’ve added or significantly expanded times when kids can play at their facilities for free. Such courses often take little-utilized tee times late in the day to carve out opportunities for free — or reduced-rate — junior golf.
“The thing I really took away from today is this ‘kids play free’ program has officially gone viral,” Mate said. “It’s taken a while, but it’s now being adopted as an industry standard. Everybody is focused on it because everybody realizes that we lost a whole generation of golfers by being very unfriendly to kids, basically telling them, ‘We don’t want you.’
“And now we’re the opposite. They’re expanding the number of days (free golf is available to juniors); it used to be just weekends. I think it’s fantastic. To me, it’s very, very encouraging. That will change one of the metrics, which is that people playing golf will go up.”
The Colorado PGA has teamed up with the CGA, CWGA and other major golf organizations in the state to greatly expand the Golf in Schools program in recent years, and the Section has made “Get Golf Ready” initiatives a high priority. And now the Colorado PGA has other plans designed to effectively lure juniors into the game — and keep them in it. “Team Golf”, which has been used effectively in Texas to build the participation rate of junior golfers, is among the things on the agenda.
“I think our work is still ahead of us,” Ainsworth said. “We’ve got to grow the base so everything grows. I think our best days are ahead of us. We’ve got a lot of stuff in the pipeline (growth of the game-wise) that’s going to come out next year that I think we’ll be all right.”
More generally speaking, Ainsworth believes that despite the rounds and revenue numbers just released, things are headed in the right direction.
“You saw the hands in the room of the (course operators) who are going to raise fees. That’s a good sign (for the health of the industry),” he said. “A lot of people are getting new equipment; that’s a good sign. To me, there’s a lot of optimistic indicators. When you factor in how bad the weather has been (in 2013), I would say overall it’s been a good year.”
