The Masters announced its payouts this morning. I don’t know why they wait so long to do it. Maybe it depends on how many players make the cut. I like the alternative, that it is tied to the price of pimento cheese.
The winner of the Masters will make $3.6 million tomorrow. That’s pretty cool. That’s a lot of money. Is it the coolest part of winning the Masters? I don’t think so. For one thing, even if you finish 50th you get $50,000, so it’s more like making $3.55 million. You’ve already made the first $50K just by getting this far. For another, I think the pride of reaching the pinnacle of your profession probably feels pretty cool.
As for me? If I was given the choice between being given $3.6 million tomorrow and winning the Masters tomorrow, I’d take the $3.6 million. Here are my thoughts:
- If I won the Masters tomorrow, having not played in it Thursday, yesterday, or today, I would probably be winning it on a weird technicality. I wouldn’t feel like I’d earned it.
- If I won the Masters tomorrow, having played in it the whole way through, I would be a professional golfer. I’m not sure I would want to be a professional golfer. The life behind me would look so different. I might have never discovered the magic of Joe Kelly. I suppose there’s a case where maybe I started golfing two years ago, discovered I was the greatest natural golfer of all time, qualified for last year’s U.S. Open, won it, and then won this year’s Masters. That would be great. I would like that. The perks of being a professional golfer and the triumph of victory, without giving up most of my current life? Sign me up. But I think that in this cosmic bargain, that’s not the likeliest way it would work. The genie is giving me two choices: Win the Masters or get $3.6 million. I can’t take on the risk.
- The $3.6 million would be useful. I could buy a nice house. I could hire some menial laborers to do tasks for the blog. I could spend some money marketing the blog. I could fly my dog private to Christmas back in Illinois instead of doing a two-day drive both ways. I could bet $100,000 on Joe Kelly to win the Cy Young and write it off as entertainment. I could pay an accountant to do my taxes which are due Monday and still undone. I could pay any fines I incurred when the accountant gave the IRS incorrect information because I didn’t give the accountant my Uber Eats mileage log.
Congratulations, then, to whoever wins tomorrow.
I’ll take the money.
