Orlando, United States: Golf Datatech, LLC, one of the golf industry’s leading independent research firms for consumer, trade and retail golf trends, has unveiled Assessing the Pyramid 2014, a comprehensive study of serious golfers and their post-recession buying habits.
The timing of this study is particularly significant as it analyses the lingering impact of the United States’ economic meltdown on the golf industry, and its most engaged participants.
Golf Datatech’s John Krzynowek said: “Assessing the Pyramid 2014 provides a deep-dive investigation and evaluation of the primary marketing and promotional strategies employed by golf companies and equipment manufacturers when selling to the end consumer.”
The study was conducted with 3,000 respondents from Golf Datatech’s proprietary database of serious golfers, those who play the most rounds and spend the most on the game, with the average respondent playing over 60 rounds per year, with a household income of more than US$156,000 per year.
“In certain sectors of the golf industry, such as the equipment market, the state of the business is not good and we use this study to analyse why the market has stumbled since the recession, while providing insight into areas which have held up,” Krzynowek said.
“All indications are that serious damage was done to the core economic beliefs and purchasing psyche of the serious golfer due to the recession and the very weak recovery. In fact, over half of all respondents to the study said they still don’t feel financially secure in today’s economy, and their overall spending on golf-related purchases has not recovered to anywhere near pre-recession levels.”
Additional highlights of the 2014 Pyramid Study centre on the comparison of attitudes and opinions from the pinnacle of the pyramid (low handicaps), to the base, where higher handicap players represent the foundation of the game.
The study investigates how these attitudes have changed over the past seven years in the face of an extreme economic downturn. Cross tabbed sub-segments of the study focus on Alpha golfers (High Frequency Purchasers), Age, Facility Type Played, Handicaps and Gender.
Krzynowek said: “Those who utilise the ‘Pyramid’ in their marketing believe that developing successful golf brands starts with excellent products and services that perform at the highest level of play by the very best players. In turn, those players influence and spread the word among the other levels of the game.”
Additional questions that the study serves to answer include:
*Does the traditional ‘Pyramid’ theory still hold?
*What has been the impact of the recession on the attitudes of golfers regarding golf purchases?
*Has the craving for new or improved technologies in golf equipment been marred by the economic circumstances over the past seven years?
These questions, and many more, are investigated in depth within the study.
Coincidentally, Golf Datatech released its initial Assessing the Pyramid study in the summer of 2007, just months before the US economy began slipping into the early stages of recession, just as the US GDP began to tumble, unemployment soared, real estate values were decimated and the banking industry nearly collapsed.
With the 2014 version of the study, Golf Datatech helps to bring the discussion full circle, while providing the golf industry with a road map into the future.