The winter of 2014 has had golfers in Detroit partying like it is 1881. That is the last time people in eastern Michigan have seen as much snowfall as they have this year.Although the nearly 84 inches of snow that fell in the Detroit area this year ranks second all-time to the 93.6 inches that fell in 1881, it was more than enough to bring golf in the area to a standstill.
According to Golf Datatech, year-over-year rounds played were down 4.6 percent nationwide in February, but that statistic doesn?t quite tell the whole story. Michigan was one of seven states nationwide, joining Minnesota, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, where weather was so bad throughout the month that there were no measurable statistics on play available. In other words, it was too cold and too snowy throughout all six of those states that no one was able to play anywhere.
For the year, play is down 4.1 across the country compared with the first two months of 2013.
In February, rounds played were down by double-digits in six of eight geographic regions. The only areas in which rounds played were on the rise were in the Southeast and the drought-stricken mountain west.
Play was up in six states, with New Mexico (up 23 percent), Arizona (10 percent) and Georgia (10 percent) leading the way. Conversely, the Golf Datatech survey of 2,990 private and daily fee courses, shows that play was down in 43 states (the survey does not include Alaska), including losses in double-digits in 38 states and Washington, D.C.
Besides the seven states where no measureable rounds occurred, the biggest losses in February occurred in Pennsylvania (down 91 percent), Iowa (down 80 percent) and New York (down 71 percent).