Brian Rolapp runs the PGA Tour now. He announced sweeping changes to professional golf. The changes elevate competition and raise payouts for winners. None of this affects you.
The Tour decided golfers who win tournaments should make more money. Revolutionary stuff. Someone sat in a conference room and said "What if we paid the best players more?" and everyone nodded like he'd just invented the wheel. This is what passes for innovation when your job involves watching millionaires hit a ball into a hole.
Retail traders will find a way to lose money on this. They always do. Some guy in Michigan is already building a spreadsheet to calculate which golfer offers the best risk-adjusted return based on driving distance and putting average. He'll bet his rent money on a three-way parlay involving Rory McIlroy's back nine performance. He'll lose. The PGA Tour will take its cut. The sportsbook will take its cut. The golfer will buy another house.
Elevated competition means fewer players make the cut. Raised payouts mean the gap between first place and everyone else gets wider. This is somehow supposed to make golf more exciting. Nothing says compelling sports entertainment like watching 47 guys realize they flew to Ohio for nothing while one guy gets a check that could buy a yacht.
The technical analysis here is simple. Line goes up for winners. Line goes flat for everyone else. Line goes down for whatever degenerate thought golf betting was his path to financial freedom. The chart looks the same whether we're talking about stock prices or tournament purses or the slow decline of a man's faith in his own judgment.
Brian Rolapp changed professional golf and your portfolio is still underwater.
Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash
Leave a Comment