I was lucky enough to spend a little time on the golf course this weekend.
My group was a 4-some in two carts.
It was a lovely day, and we were just setting up to tee off on the first hole.
One of the group members is a mutual acquaintance I’ve known for a while but not well. I’ll call him Chad.
One of the times I met him was over the phone when we were chatting about an investment he heard me talking about.
Actually, he had verbally committed to invest $500K in what we call “Fund 3” which was an investment in a residential real estate deal.
But at the last minute, Chad got cold feet and backed out of the investment. It was a huge pain in the rear for me to back him out of it, but I didn’t want him to feel bad, so I figured it out and didn’t hold anything against him.
So as we were chatting on the course this weekend, Chad asked how the investment is doing.
Without even thinking about it, I said oh, really good, currently over a 35% rate of return, and it is almost sold out after 1.5 years instead of 3.
Then Chad literally yells out, “What the F&%$.”
It was a bit like the record just stopped at a nightclub—total silence among everyone around. I think even the people in the clubhouse heard it.
I had never seen Chad heated before, and it turns out he’s a bit of a hothead.
So he kind of stormed off but came back to tee off. He then proceeded to top the shot completely. The ball went about 20 feet. And, of course, he was mad.
When we met back on the green, I apologized and tried to smooth things over, but he was still heated.
Needless to say, it was a very rough start to a long day.
And I can see why.
Because of his last-minute cold feet, he lost out on $268400 (as of today).
He went on to shoot probably one of the worst games of his life and generally made the day not very pleasant.
I may have to start a “no talking about how someone just lost a bunch of money” rule on the course.
I know this isn’t the usual educational blog, but I had to share.
(I guess this is a great education on the meaning of opportunity costs)