Vital Signs, december 20, 2013

     A year after an early spring helped to boost the annual number of rounds played by 5.7 percent, U.S. golf course owners and operators got no such weather-related luck in 2013. Through October, according to PGA PerformanceTrak, the number of rounds played nationally has dropped by 4.4 percent. The National Golf Foundation appears to be hoping for a year-end loss of about 4 percent. As a result of this decline, revenues from greens fees at U.S. facilities have fallen by about 3 percent, although PerformanceTrak reports that owners and operators are seeing some slight increases in their merchandise and food-and-beverage sales.

     It’s been “a modestly successful year” for golf course owners and operators in central Oregon, according to the Bend Bulletin, but it was filled with “peaks and valleys” that couldn’t easily be explained. “It seemed like an odd year,” said a pro in Redmond. “I never really felt that there was a reason for periods of time during the year that we did well and periods of time when we did not do well.” The director of golf at a course in La Pine said, “It was strange as far as when the highs and lows were and how it would change. It’s not as consistent as it used to be.” Such comments beg a question: Is this the new normal?

     Morgan Housel of the Motley Fool believes that 2013 was “a breakthrough year” for the U.S. economy. In a letter to investors (sorry, it isn’t available online), Housel identifies three important economic factors that he says have largely been overlooked. First, in what he describes as “the most significant statistic I've seen in at least five years,” he points out that Americans currently have the lowest debt burdens on record, which in his mind sets the stage for “the kind of lasting economic growth we haven't experienced since the 1990s.” Second, health-care costs have fallen dramatically, which to him suggests that the national debt isn’t likely to reach catastrophic levels anytime soon. And third, the federal budget deficit has declined by 60% over the past three years, an indication that Uncle Sam is doing a better job of living within his means. “I’m confident that the economy has far more going in its favor today than risks stacked against it,” Housel writes. Finally, the economy appears to be turning the proverbial corner. Let’s hope the golf industry is right behind it.

     Will fast-aging populations in Asia create opportunities for the development of Sun City-style golf communities? By 2017, India is expected to have roughly 118 million residents over the age of 60, and China will have 217 million. What’s more, Bloomberg reports that “an increasing number of those retirees will be wealthy,” because by 2018 the Asia-Pacific region is expected to get a 75 percent increase in millionaires, to 11.5 million. But communities for active adults are an anomaly in cultures built on close family ties. Can developers persuade senior citizens to live in places so alien to them?

     When it comes to golf development in Cuba, nothing ever seems to change. The operative description remains “all talk, no action.” Now more than ever, however, the nation may need the kind of spark that golf might provide. In what is disappointing news for a nation whose economy increasingly depends on tourism, through the first 10 months of this year the total number of international travelers to Cuba fell by 1.2 percent from the same period in 2012. Might this decline finally grease the wheels in Cuba’s approvals process?