Construction down, participation up, according to first Gold 20/20 report

Golf Course News, Sep 2002 by Rice, Derek

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - Gone are the boom days of the 1990s, when new course openings were at an all-time high. New course openings are becoming fewer and farther between as the industry tries to adjust to newparticipation levels, according to the first annual Golf Industry Report from Golf 20/20, which takes a look at the state of various aspects of the game.

In fact, the report concludes, fewer courses are being planned and opened now than at any time in the last decade, and an increasingly smaller percentage of those being planned and opened are public-access courses.

The increase in the number of courses in recent years have gone from 3.2 percent in 2000 to 2.1 in 2001 percent. The projected increase this year is only 1.8 percent. However, given no change in rounds played from 2000 to 2001, the average number of rounds per course went from 33,737 in 2000 to 33,000 in 2001.

Last year also saw the closing of 32 courses, five of which are scheduled to reopen in the future. Of the remaining 27, 22 closed for financial reasons, while the others closed for either environmental reasons or because they were designated by a public entity for public use, such as a highway. Where these courses have closed, the land has been used for everything from schools to housing developments. Twenty-- five of these 27 courses were daily-fee and two were municipal.

However, all the news in the report was not gloomy. Among the other findings are:

* The number of participants rose from 36 million in 2000 to 37.1 million in 2001, which meets the industry's objective of adding one million participants (defined as someone five or older who has played at least one round of regulation golf or used an alternative facility or golf range in the last 12 months) per year from 2000 to 2020. On the other hand, the number of golfers (someone 18 or older who has played at least one round of regulation golf in the last 12 months) increased only slightly, from 25.4 million to 25.8 million.

* Studies in 2001 indicate an increase in the number of occasional golfers (one to seven rounds per year) and a decrease in the number of core golfers (eight to 24 rounds) and in avid golfers (25 or more rounds). Yet the average number of rounds played per golfer decreased only slightly, from 20.41 to 20.08.

The report concludes that given the economy, the events of Sept. 11 and particularly poor weather in several key parts of the country, 2001 more than held its own. These factors were also cited in findings from the NGF and the National Golf Course Owners Association as reasons why rounds played were flat in 2001 (GCN Aug. 2002).

Positive notes indicated in the report are that interest in the game continues to grow, along with the number of participants and the number of golfers. This good news is tempered by the apparent decrease in the number of return golfers on the higher end of the spectrum, which the industry must address.

The report was supposed to be released in May, but the process of gathering data from so many varied sources proved to be more time-consuming than expected. Next year's report, however, will be out in May.