April 2025 ForeSeeGolf Operations Benchmarking Report
From national revenue performance to standout courses and new analytics features, here’s what we learned from April’s data.
At ForeSee Golf, we’re building the industry's most comprehensive performance benchmarking dataset — now with insights from over 3,000 public golf courses across the U.S. This month’s report includes powerful upgrades: metro-level filtering, management company benchmarking, and forward-looking pricing and demand forecasts.
Whether you're a single course operator or managing dozens of facilities, this data offers a critical edge in pricing, planning, and profitability.
National Performance Overview
RevPAR (Revenue per Available Round): $24.10
Occupancy Rate (OR): 42.75%
Average Daily Rate (ADR): $57.53
Revenue Generation Index (RGI): 0.99
While national averages held relatively steady, several patterns point to tactical opportunities — especially around weekend and mid-day play.
Opportunities
While April reaffirmed strong weekend demand, anomalies in the data point to real opportunities for smarter pricing. Saturday mornings are overperforming on occupancy and weekday mornings are undervalued. Twilight on Fridays and Sundays is also stronger than expected, opening the door for revenue lift with thoughtful rate adjustments.
These moments—hidden in the daypart data—are where smart operators can outperform the market.
Saturday Morning Occupancy (76.67%) vs. Midday (42.05%)
Saturday morning is overwhelmingly the most in-demand tee time segment—nearly double the midday rate—yet ADR doesn't increase proportionally across these segments. Consider premium tier pricing for Saturday morning to better reflect demand.
Friday Twilight Occupancy (32.27%) at Near-Peak Levels
Friday twilight has one of the highest twilight occupancy rates, yet ADR remains in the low $50s. Courses may be undervaluing this pre-weekend window—consider targeted rate adjustments or promotions to boost twilight yield.
Monday & Wednesday Morning Occupancy (60%) vs. Low ADRs ($60)
Weekday mornings are surprisingly strong in demand, yet ADR is among the lowest of the week. This misalignment suggests courses could test modest weekday morning price increases to improve RevPAR without dampening demand.
Touchstone Golf Outperforms Peers in Occupancy and Efficiency
In April, Touchstone Golf emerged as the most efficient operator, combining the highest occupancy with a market-leading RevGen Index—despite maintaining lower-than-average pricing. Meanwhile, operators with premium ADRs like Troon and Arcis may benefit from reviewing pricing sensitivity, especially as their occupancy trails the leaders.
Touchstone leads all management companies in occupancy rate (47.52%) while maintaining the lowest ADR ($42.41) among its top-performing peers. Despite lower pricing, it generates a RevGen Index of 1.07, indicating strong efficiency in converting available rounds into revenue. This suggests Touchstone may be using tighter inventory management, optimized utilization, or more aggressive pricing strategy to drive play volume and overall profitability.
This kind of data-driven benchmarking not only helps course operators and management groups identify whether revenue gaps stem from underpricing, overpricing, or operational inefficiencies—but also offers valuable context for course owners evaluating management performance. These insights can play a key role when it's time to renew or renegotiate contracts with third-party management companies.
High Rates, Lower Efficiency: Troon and Arcis in Focus
Troon boasts the highest ADR of any operator at $72.47, but its occupancy (40.29%) lags behind Touchstone and KemperSports. While Troon still posts a solid RevGen Index (1.01), the data implies pricing may be approaching elasticity limits, especially if those rates aren't consistently matched with higher demand.
Similarly, Arcis reports the second-highest ADR ($69.92) but lands at the bottom in occupancy (34.11%) and one of the lowest RGIs (0.94), suggesting potential overpricing or demand suppression.
KemperSports Balancing Value and Volume
KemperSports stands out for finding a strong balance—posting the second-highest occupancy (41.29%) and a healthy ADR of $58.87, leading to a solid RevGen Index of 1.02. Their model appears to align price with demand in a way that maximizes both fill rate and revenue.
American Golf and ARCIS
American Golf and Arcis both trail the field in key performance metrics. With occupancy rates below 35%, ADRs under $70, and RGIs below 0.95, these operators may be missing opportunities to fully monetize demand. Whether due to outdated pricing models, underutilized inventory, or weak conversion strategies, the data points to clear areas for review and optimization.
Notification Systems Show Limited Impact on Occupancy Performance
While notification tools like Noteefy are growing in adoption across golf courses, our April occupancy data suggests their presence alone does not correlate with higher performance in occupancy rate.
Nationally, courses using Noteefy report a slightly higher average occupancy rate (42.6%) compared to non-Noteefy courses (40.0%).
However, in California, the trend flips: Noteefy courses average 31.5%, while non-Noteefy courses average 35.0% — a 10% performance gap in favor of non-Noteefy courses.
This discrepancy highlights an important insight:
📌 Notification systems are not a guaranteed driver of occupancy or revenue.
It's important to stress that correlation does not equal causation. Many Noteefy-enabled courses are already high-demand facilities that adopted the tool to manage interest—not necessarily to increase it. In fact, the data shows that in some cases, these systems are used by courses that already fill up quickly, meaning there’s little room to improve occupancy in the first place.
Notification tools may improve customer experience or streamline internal processes, but based on the April data, they do not show clear or consistent revenue uplift through improved occupancy—especially not enough to justify a premium subscription based solely on revenue impact.
Importantly, as booking engines increasingly begin offering notification features as part of their core platform, course operators should evaluate whether it still makes financial sense to pay for a third-party plugin. In many cases, the same functionality can be achieved more cost-effectively within an existing system.
Operators considering such tools should evaluate them based on operational or guest experience benefits, rather than expecting measurable revenue increases without additional strategies to boost yield and conversion.
Top Revenue Generating Golf Courses – April 2025
Using Revenue Generation Index (RGI) as our primary performance indicator—which measures how well a course generates revenue relative to its local market peers—we’ve identified the top-performing public courses across the country for April. These courses not only delivered strong pricing and demand performance but significantly outpaced their local competition.
Topping the list is Trump National Doral Miami – Blue Monster, with an RGI of 3.06, meaning it generated more than 3x the revenue of its in-market peers. California, Florida, and North Carolina all show strong representation in the top tier, highlighting diverse geographic performance.
| Rank | Course Name | Market Area | RGI |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Trump National Doral Miami – Blue Monster | Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL | 3.06 |
| 2 | Monarch Beach Golf Links | Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA | 2.81 |
| 3 | Waldorf Astoria Golf Club | Orlando-Kissimmee, FL | 2.45 |
| 4 | Mid South Club | NC Nonmetropolitan Area | 2.36 |
| 5 | Tiburón Golf Club – Gold Course | Naples-Marco Island, FL | 2.10 |
| 6 | TPC Sawgrass – Dyes Valley Course | Jacksonville, FL | 2.08 |
| 7 | Cascata Golf Club | Las Vegas-Paradise, NV | 2.08 |
| 8 | TPC Harding Park Golf Club | San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 1.98 |
| 9 | Trump National Golf Club – Los Angeles | Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA | 1.97 |
| 10 | Harbor Club on Lake Oconee | GA Nonmetropolitan Area | 1.83 |
| 11 | Pound Ridge Golf Club | New York-Northern NJ-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA | 1.80 |
| 12 | Indian Wells Golf Resort – Celebrity Course | Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA | 1.79 |
| 13 | Yocha Dehe Golf Club at Cache Creek Casino | Sacramento-Roseville-Arden-Arcade, CA | 1.79 |
| 14 | Talamore Golf Resort | NC Nonmetropolitan Area | 1.74 |
| 15 | Creekmoor Golf Club | Kansas City, MO-KS | 1.67 |
| 16 | Seven Springs Golf & Country Club – The Champion Course | Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL | 1.65 |
| 17 | Cantigny Golf Club | Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI | 1.63 |
| 18 | Mainlands Golf Course | Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL | 1.60 |
| 19 | Suncadia Resort – Rope Rider Golf Course | WA Nonmetropolitan Area | 1.59 |
| 20 | Cowboys Golf Club | Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 1.59 |
Wrapping Up April: Key Takeaways & How to Use This Data
April’s data highlights the growing power of benchmarking to uncover pricing opportunities, spot market shifts, and evaluate performance beyond your own tee sheet. From Touchstone’s operational efficiency to RGI standouts like Trump National Doral and Monarch Beach, there’s a lot course operators can learn by studying the leaders — and identifying gaps in their own strategy.
Whether you manage a single course or a portfolio, this report can help you:
Spot underpriced dayparts or demand surges in your market
Compare your course’s performance to local or national trends
Evaluate the ROI of technology or third-party tools
Benchmark against other operators and make a case for operational changes
Access the Full Report
The full April 2025 Benchmarking Report includes metro-level filtering, daypart analysis, management group comparisons, and forward-looking forecasts. It’s free to access — for now.
We Want Your Feedback
ForeSee Golf is building the most comprehensive benchmarking dataset in golf, and we’re doing it with course operators in mind. If there’s data you want to see, analysis you’d like us to include, or just questions you have — we’re all ears.
📧 Want a custom report for your course or portfolio? Contact us here and we’ll help you put the data to work.
Let’s make golf more profitable — together.
