Climatology Research

Weather has a significant impact on the profitability and operations of golf courses everywhere in the world. Using data from the federal government's 30 years of weather data from the National Climactic Data Control Center, Longitudes Group has developed the Golf Comfort Index. The Golf Comfort Index or GCI generates a report on each of 330+ golf markets in the United States in which days are broken down into "thermal comfort" days for golfers: cold, cool, ideal, warm and hot. From those total number of days, the model eliminates days it rained more than 0.5 inch, days of other extreme weather such as high winds, freezing temperatures and days it snowed.

The remaining days are considered "playable." The Golf Comfort Index report and analysis allows golf facilities to determine a baseline rounds capacity every month they can measure against to see the impact of weather over the course of a year. The model calculates possible rounds for each playable day by multiplying the day lengths in the winter and summer in the market by the number of possible rounds per hour. For this analysis, a 10 minute interval was assumed, and that no rounds would be counted 2 hours before dark.

The benefit to courses is that it enables detailed financial planning and performance analysis to understand the impact of weather on course revenues. It also allows golf courses to understand how many days in the off-season and shoulder-season it should be able to generate revenues from play based on the 30 year weather model. This eliminates ‘blaming’ the weather and allows for ‘measuring and planning for’ the weather.