The Burden of Glory: Non-monetary Incentives in Rank-order...

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The Burden of Glory:

Non-monetary Incentives in Rank-order Tournaments

RAJA KALI, DAVID PASTORIZA and JEAN-FRANÇOIS PLANTE1

Abstract

In an environment in which elite, highly-paid professionals compete for non-monetary rewards,

we find evidence of underperformance, which intensifies under pressure. Our results suggest that

choking under pressure rather than risk taking or intimidation by superstars is the reason for

underperformance. This implies that concern for non-monetary goals can have adverse incentive

effects when high stakes are involved. These findings come from an examination of the behavior

of top US golfers as they compete to earn a place on the US Ryder Cup team via their

performance in PGA Tour tournaments with differing allocations of Ryder Cup qualifying points.

Keywords: Competition, non-monetary incentives, high stakes, choking, performance, risk-

taking, intimidation

JEL Classification: D03, J44, L83

1University of Arkansas, [email protected]; HEC Montreal, [email protected]; HEC Montreal,

[email protected].

mailto:[email protected]



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The Burden of Glory:

Non-monetary Incentives in Rank-order Tournaments

Abstract

In an environment in which elite, highly-paid professionals compete for non-monetary rewards,

we find evidence of underperformance, which intensifies under pressure. Our results suggest that

choking under pressure rather than risk taking or intimidation by superstars is the reason for

underperformance. This implies that concern for non-monetary goals can have adverse incentive

effects when high stakes are involved. These findings come from an examination of the behavior

of top US golfers as they compete to earn a place on the US Ryder Cup team via their

performance in PGA Tour tournaments with differing allocations of Ryder Cup qualifying points.

1. Introduction

Non-monetary incentives are widely used in firms. Indeed, it is common practice in various

organizations to reward top-performing employees with symbolic rewards such as medals, rings,

sculptures and plaques, often during lavish ceremonies. Popular management books such as

Nelson (1994) tout the value of such prizes in motivating workers by contributing to status, self-

esteem and respect. In many instances the winners of such honors are determined on the basis of a

tournament, either explicit or implicit. For instance, awards such as “Employee of the Year” are

determined tournament-style in many firms2.

A growing body of literature has begun to consider the impact of non-monetary incentives on

effort and performance3. A primary focus of this literature has been on the role of non-monetary

incentives in principal-agent problems. At the risk of generalizing, one could say that the

conclusion of the literature thus far, both theoretical and empirical, is that non-monetary rewards

can provide effective incentives, and in some cases may be better than financial incentives at

aligning objectives of agents and principals.

In this paper, we examine an environment in which individuals compete for a non-monetary

reward associated with status, self-esteem and respect (concepts that we bundle together as

“glory”), and find evidence that runs contrary to existing empirical literature on non-monetary

incentives, albeit in a setting that is entrepreneurial rather than agency. We find that elite, highly-

paid professionals who compete for glory underperform, and that underperformance intensifies as

pressure increases.

Empirical work on the question of non-monetary incentives has been primarily experimental, in

large part because of the difficulty in finding a real-world setting with a convincing separation of

2Kosfeld and Neckermann (2011) provide examples of such awards from McDonalds, IBM, and Intuit. 3Heffetz and Frank (2011), Gneezy et al. (2011), and Ellingsen and Johanesson (2007) are valuable surveys

of the literature in these areas. The idea that humans value status has been widely studied (see, for

example, Frank (1985)). We reference specific papers later.

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monetary and non-monetary incentives.4 What distinguishes our study is an attempt to test the

importance of non-monetary incentives in a competitive environment with high stakes, high-

ability, and wealthy agents: the PGA tour. Since we cannot distinguish between the effects of

status, social esteem and respect (and indeed multiple non-monetary mechanisms could be at

work), we therefore bundle them together under the term “glory.” Specifically, we use data from

the PGA Tour to examine the performance of US players between 1996 and 2012 when

competing to qualify for the Ryder Cup.

The Ryder Cup is the oldest competition of nations in professional golf, involving the two golf

superpowers: the US and Europe. Players are not paid to participate in the Ryder Cup and there is

no monetary award for winning the Ryder Cup. Moreover, American players who qualify for the

US Ryder Cup team must make a donation to a charitable foundation. This biennial competition

is widely acknowledged to be the most prestigious competition of nations in professional golf,

and playing for one’s country is a great honor for which even very wealthy professional golfers

vie (Palmer and Dodson, 1999; Rosaforte, 1996). Being part of an elite group of golfers, who

have the privilege of representing their countries, and not a direct monetary gain, is considered

the Ryder Cup’s own reward. We use the contest to qualify for the Ryder Cup to provide a

separation of monetary and non-monetary incentives.

The Ryder Cup qualifying point system allocates a number of points to each PGA Tour

tournament. It is designed in such a way that throughout the qualifying Ryder Cup period, some

PGA Tour tournaments with an important prize award have little Ryder Cup points, while other

tournaments with little prize money are well endowed with Ryder Cup points. Accordingly, in

each PGA Tour tournament there is a separation between economic incentives (i.e., prize money

award) and what we call glory incentives (i.e., available Ryder Cup points) that players face. At

the end of the Ryder Cup qualifying period, the US players who have accumulated the highest

number of Ryder Cup points are selected as members of the US Ryder Cup team.

We estimate the impact of competing to qualify for the Ryder Cup by examining players`

performance when they play in tournaments with different Ryder Cup point allocation. Our

identification strategy is based on comparing their performance across the same tournament in

two subsequent years: one year (the year previous to the Ryder Cup) in which there are few Ryder

points and another year (the year of the Ryder Cup) in which there are many Ryder points. The

main results of our paper are as follows. First, the higher the number of Ryder Cup points at stake

is, the worse players play. In other words, we find significant evidence that the desire to attain

glory is a burden for player performance. Second, the players who underperform the most are

those who are in more desperate need of Ryder Cup points. That is, the negative effect is

particularly strong for players who are lagging behind players who are interim-qualified. Third,

we find evidence that as the time to qualify begins to run out and competitive crowding

intensifies, players feel more pressure and tend to choke. Fourth, we eliminate the possibility that

player underperformance is due to the adoption of risky strategies. We find that when players find

themselves in tournaments with a high allocation of Ryder Cup points, they become risk averse

and adopt safe strategies. Fifth, we discard the possibility that player underperformance is due to

4Frey and Jegen (2001) provide a useful survey of motivation crowding theory and evidence.

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the intimidating presence of a superstar in the tournament. Brown (2011) shows that when Tiger

Woods is present in a tournament and performing well, the rest of the players underperform. Our

Ryder Cup effect is robust to Tiger Woods being in contention to win the tournament. Sixth, we

find no evidence that players who are not competing to qualify for the US Ryder Cup team (i.e.,

low-ability American players or European players in the PGA Tour) are negatively affected in

PGA Tour tournaments with a higher allocation Ryder Cup points.5 Our results are thus robust to

an out-of-sample test. Finally, we show that off-the-course income (such as from corporate

endorsements, bonuses, speaker fees and so on), is not sensitive to qualifying for the Ryder Cup.

Thus, player underperformance is unlikely to be driven by pressure from the expectation of future

monetary rewards, as in Ariely et al.(2009).

Our study has a number of implications for the study of incentives. First, virtually all laboratory

and field experiments on non-monetary incentives, such as those referenced in the next section,

are relatively small-stakes settings involving either students or relatively low-skill workers. Our

study involves highly-skilled professionals playing for high stakes and is similar in this

dimension to studies by Guryan et al., (2009) and Pope and Schweitzer (2011). Second, to the

best of our knowledge, the question of how competing for non-monetary rewards affects behavior

is a distinct issue that has yet to be examined. Third, while the literature on non-monetary

incentives has focused on principal-agent situations, our context can be considered closer to an

entrepreneurial environment. Our findings suggest that in entrepreneurial settings a concern for

glory can affect performance adversely. Overall, our results could be viewed as a counterexample

to findings on non-monetary incentives from the behavioral agency literature.

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 reviews related literature on non-

monetary incentives. Section 3 describes the Ryder Cup and the way in which American players

qualify to represent the US, which sets the stage for our empirical strategy described in Section 4.

Section 5 contains our primary results and robustness checks. We consider alternative

explanations for the behavior of players to qualify for the US Ryder Cup Team in Section 6.

Section 7 discusses our results and relates them to the literature on choking under pressure and

concludes

2. Related Literature

The literature on non-monetary incentives has been developing rapidly. From a theoretical

perspective, the research agenda initiated by Benabou and Tirole (2003) explains the trade-off

between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and shows that material incentives may undermine

incentives based on social esteem (Benabou and Tirole, 2006). Ellingsen and Johanesson (2008)

expand the theory to explain why a desire for social esteem can lead to greater effort, especially

when an actor deems the esteem accorded by an audience’s approval to be worthwhile. The

notion of social esteem or respect in these studies is the idea that individuals care about what

others think and is based on self-regarding motives such as pride and shame. Besley and Ghatak

5 While in this paper we talk about “low-ability” and “high-ability” players, all individuals competing in the

PGA Tour player are elite players with extraordinary golf skills.

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(2008) develop a model showing how the explicit creation of status incentives by firms can

increase effort by creating what they call “motivated” agents. Status is associated with the

awarding of a positional good such as a non-monetary honor (a prize or a title) that only

individuals who have produced high output receive. Status incentives work by creating social

divisions. Our notion of glory is closest in spirit to the Besley-Ghatak notion of a non-monetary

positional good such as an honor.

A number of recent studies by Hopkins and Kornienko (2004, 2006, and 2009) develop a

framework for understanding competition for status. In their framework, individuals have

interdependent preferences that involve concern with their status, as indicated by ordinal rank in

the distribution of consumption, income or wealth. A study by Dhillon and Herzog-Stein (2009)

develops a principal-agent framework in which workers in a firm care about their rank in the

wage distribution. In all of these studies, however, the competition is for rank in a pecuniary

positional distribution.

From an empirical point of view, most research on non-monetary incentives has taken the form of

laboratory experiments. In pioneering work, Ball and Eckel (1996, 1998) and Ball et al. (2001)

directly manipulate status in the lab by artificially awarding high or low status to subjects. They

find that their manipulation affects behavior and that individuals awarded high status in the lab

enjoy favorable economic outcomes. In a recent paper, Ashraf et al. (2014) conduct a field

experiment to examine the effectiveness of financial and non-financial rewards for pro-social

tasks. They find that agents who are awarded non-financial rewards exert more effort than those

offered financial rewards. Non-financial rewards elicit effort by facilitating social comparisons

among agents and by leveraging the agents’ pro-social motivation. Kosfeld and Neckermann

(2011) also study the impact of status and social recognition on worker performance in a field

experiment and find that purely symbolic awards significantly improve performance6.

6 Our paper is also related to a literature that views sports as a microcosm of larger society, with advantages

such as data quality and availability (Wolfe et al., 2005). Previous empirical studies have used data on

professional golf. Ehrenberg and Bognanno (1990a, 1990b) find that higher monetary rewards lead to

lower scores both in the PGA Tour and in the European Tour. Orszag (1994) and Matthews et al., (2007),

on the other hand, show limited effects of a tournament’s prize structure on player efforts. Hood (2006)

finds that players prefer to play in tournaments in which they have played before and have obtained good

results. Hood (2008) finds that players who play inconsistently earn more money and win more

tournaments. Brown (2011) captures the intimidation effect of competing with a superstar. She shows that

Wood’s presence makes other players (both bottom and top-level players) underperform. Guryan et al.,

(2009) use random assignment in the PGA Tour to test for peer effects in the workplace. They find no

evidence that playing partner ability affects the performance of players. Finally, Pope and Schweitzer

(2011) use putting data to show that loss aversion is associated with higher risk-taking.

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3. Qualifying for the Ryder Cup

The Ryder Cup is a biennial tournament jointly administered by the PGA of America and the

PGA European Tour, the site of which alternates between courses in the US and Europe. Its

origins date to 1926, when a team of US professionals competed against a team of British

professionals at Wentworth Club, England. It was not until 1979 that the European team decided

to include golfers from continental Europe to compete in the Ryder Cup. Driven largely by the

desire to counter American dominance, this decision has led to a more balanced competition.

Since 1979, there have been seven American wins versus ten European wins.

The halo of prestige surrounding the Ryder Cup derives not only from being the oldest

competition of nations in professional golf and including most of the best professional golfers in

the world, but also from the fact that no prize money is awarded for winning it. By comparison, a

regular PGA Tour tournament has an average purse of over $6 million. In order to further detach

the Ryder Cup from the commercial interests of sponsors, players are only allowed to wear the

Ryder Cup logo on their clothing. Moreover, players who have qualified for the Ryder Cup must

make a donation to a charitable foundation: to date, more than $7 million have been distributed to

colleges and universities throughout the US (PGA Media Guide, 2012). The Ryder Cup may be

hazardous nonetheless: players are subject to potential injuries and can be berated in the press as

the cause of the defeat, as has been the case with the US loss in the Ryder Cup 2014 (Crouse,

2014). Despite the costs and hazards associated with participating in the Ryder Cup, all American

players who have qualified for the US Ryder Cup Team since 1996 have accepted the invitation

to participate. An illustration of how American players vie for qualifying for the US Ryder Cup

Team can be found in a quote from Arnold Palmer, 62-time PGA Tour winner: “I loved the Ryder

Cup, because it simply wasn’t about playing for money. It was about playing for something far

grander and more personal than income and money lists. It was all about playing for your

country, your people, and therefore yourself” (Palmer and Dodson, 1999).

Despite the large non-monetary rewards and the absence of direct monetary rewards for

participating in the Ryder Cup, we acknowledge that in principle there may be non-direct

monetary rewards associated with being in the US Ryder Cup team. Today, the Ryder Cup is one

of the tournaments in golf that generates the most media attention with almost 1000 TV

accredited staff from across the world (Ryder Cup, 2014). Players, through their appearance in the

US Ryder Cup team, can improve their brand name (although most of them are already

millionaire superstars). This better brand recognition could in turn result in improved contracts

with their sponsors. In section 6.3 we consider this possibility in more detail and show that

qualifying for the Ryder Cup does not affect future off-the-course income.

The current setup of the Ryder Cup, which takes place over three days, involves 28 matches

between players selected from two teams of twelve (representing the US and Europe,

respectively).7 After the 28 matches, the team that accumulates the most points wins the Ryder

cup. Our study, however, does not focus on player performance during the Ryder Cup. Rather, it

7The winner of each match scores a point for his team, with ½ a point for each team if the match finishes

tied.

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focuses on players’ performance during the regular PGA Tour season, when they try to qualify

for the Ryder Cup team. US players are selected for the American Ryder Cup team based on their

performance during the regular PGA Tour season. Each PGA Tour tournament is assigned a

number of Ryder Cup qualifying points. When the qualifying period ends, the players who have

accumulated the most Ryder Cup points are selected as members of the US Ryder Cup team. Our

empirical strategy (described in the next section) allows us to isolate the effect of Ryder Cup

points available per tournament on each player’s behavior.

The PGA Tour gathers 250 of the best professional golfers in the world every year. Between 1996

and 2012, the PGA Tour season starts in January and generally ends in November. Each season

consists of 45 to 49 tournaments, depending on the year. For most tournaments, players have the

right but not the obligation to participate. A player can decide to skip a tournament for among

other reasons, because he considers the prize money is not large enough, the tournament is not

prestigious enough, or that it involves too much travel time. Tournaments are multi-stage contests

with players of heterogeneous abilities. With few exceptions, tournaments consist of four rounds

and each round of 18 holes. The four rounds are played over four consecutive days, generally

starting on Thursday and ending on Sunday. Most tournaments are made up of a field of

approximately 150 players. After the second round, roughly half the field (70 players) with the

best scores (i.e., lowest cumulative number of strokes) “make the cut” and advance to the final

two rounds. The winner of the tournament is the player who finishes with the lowest cumulative

number of strokes after four rounds. Players who make the cut receive a fraction of the total prize

money based on a highly convex function that does not vary across tournaments. The first place

player receives 18% of the purse, second place 10%, and third place 6.8%. The percentages

continue to decline down to the 70th place, who receives 0.2% of the purse. The average prize

money on the PGA Tour has increased from $1.5 to more than $6 million per tournament from

1996 to 2012, in part due to growing interest on the part of international television broadcasters.

4. Data and Empirical Strategy

4.1. Sample

Our study analyzes the qualifying periods of the last eight Ryder Cups. During this period, four

Ryder Cups were held in the US (1999, 2004, 2008 and 2012) and four in Europe (1997, 2002,

2006 and 2010). In total, our study includes 17 PGA Tour seasons, from 1996 until 2012. We test

player behavior during the PGA Tour regular season with the ShotLink® dataset obtained directly

from the PGA Tour. For every tournament of each season, the PGA Tour gathers information

about every shot of every player in the tournament. The information is recorded with great

precision thanks to laser technology that measures the coordinates of the ball before and after

each shot. Accordingly, this highly-detailed dataset provides information not only on player

performance at the end of each tournament, but also on their behavior (e.g., risk-taking) for each

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shot, hole and round. We use a panel dataset including 703 tournaments and 3,306 players, from

1996 until 2012.8

The Ryder Cup qualifying point system has varied slightly over the last eight editions of the

tournament (see Appendix 1 for details between 1996 and 2012) and has several distinctive

characteristics. First, the qualifying points allocated to the PGA Tour tournaments that take place

in a Ryder Cup year (i.e., 1997, 1999, 2001,9 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012) are much higher

than the points allocated to the PGA Tour tournaments that take place in the year previous to the

Ryder Cup (i.e., 1996, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011). Specifically, more than

80% of the total points are allocated to PGA Tour tournaments held in the Ryder Cup year.

Hence, the point system incentivizes players to exert greater effort in the tournaments held during

the Ryder Cup year than in the previous year. Second, four major championships during the

season (i.e., Augusta Masters, US Open, British Open and PGA Championship) are rewarded

with extra Ryder Cup points. Third, during the qualifying period of the 1997, 1999, 2002, 2004

and 2006 Ryder Cups, players accumulated points based on their finishing position in PGA Tour

tournaments (only the first ten positions were rewarded). During the qualifying period of the

2008, 2010 and 2012 Ryder Cups, players accumulated Ryder points based on a combination of

finishing position and prize money earned in PGA Tour tournaments. Fourth, team USA is

composed of 12 players, but some notable exceptions do not qualify through Ryder Cup points.

These exceptions are known as the “captain’s picks.”10 The captain is generally an older player

who does not play but coordinates the team. The captain’s picks are those few players who did

not accumulate enough points through the Ryder point system, but whom the captain feels could

be helpful for the team’s performance (e.g., bringing group cohesiveness or because they

performed outstandingly in past Ryder Cup editions). Lastly, since the Ryder Cup is a biennial

competition and is always held in the fall of the Ryder Cup year, the qualifying period for the

Ryder Cup typically ends with the “The PGA Championship” tournament which is always held in

mid-August.11

Only a subset of the players competing in the PGA Tour is truly in contention to qualify for the

US Ryder Cup team. In order to restrict our sample and focus only on players who have a credible

chance of qualifying, we restrict our sample to US players who have been among the top 20 US

players in the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) for at least one week during the qualifying

period of each Ryder Cup.12 The reasons for this sample selection criterion are the following.

8 Five tournaments have been omitted every year since they have an excessive number of rounds or are a

match-play modality. An additional 19 events were also removed because they did not have four rounds

(e.g., AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am was removed in 1998, 1999 and 2009 when it was shortened

to 54 holes due to bad weather).

9 Because of the September 11th events, the Ryder Cup scheduled for 2011 was rescheduled in 2012. The

points allocated in 2002 counted for the 2004 Ryder Cup, and were similar in number to a non-Ryder year. 10In the Ryder Cup editions prior to 2008, there were two captain picks (therefore, 10 players qualified

through points). In the Ryder Cup editions of 2008, 2010 and 2012, there were four captain picks

(therefore, eight players qualified through points) 11Exceptionally, in 1999 the “Sprint International” tournament was considered in the Ryder qualifying

period even though it took place one week after the PGA Championship. 12For instance, for the 1999Ryder Cup, this includes the period between January 1, 1998 and August 19,

1999).

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First, from 1996 to 2012, there has only been one player who qualified for the Ryder who did not

meet the top-20 criterion.13 Second, a player needs to perform reliably well to get into the top 20

US players in the OWGR (i.e., one PGA Tour win is not enough to get a player in that OWGR

position). Third, including more players in our sample would increase the noise in our model

since we would include players with no chance whatsoever of qualifying for the US Ryder Cup

team. As such, the final sample includes 119 players.14

4.2. Dependent Variable

Performance: Performance is captured by number of strokes and measured round-by-round.

PGA Tour tournaments have 4 rounds. At the end of the four rounds, the player who has

accumulated the lowest number of strokes wins the tournament: the higher the number of strokes

per round, the worse the performance.

4.3. Main Explanatory Variables

Ryder Cup points: This is the total number of Ryder Cup points available per tournament for US

players. Based on the US Ryder Cup point system described in the Appendix I, we have

calculated the number of points allocated to each PGA Tour tournament. Our model (see section

5.1 for details) takes advantage of the fact that the same tournament is played twice during the

Ryder qualifying period. We consider these groups of two tournaments as blocks and represent

the Ryder points variable as a proportion of the points available in that block that are allocated at

a given tournament. For instance, if 300 points are available in a 1996 regular event and 600

points in the 1997 edition of the same event, then the Ryder Points variable is 0.333 in 1996 and

0.667 in 1997.

Ranking distance to qualify: This variable reflects each player’s distance in ranking positions to

the Ryder Cup qualifying threshold. It is calculated on a weekly basis since players can

accumulate Ryder Cup points when a PGA Tour tournament takes place. As described in

Section 4.1, the ten players with the most points qualified for the 1997, 1999, 2002, 2004 and

2006 Ryder Cups. For the 2008, 2010 and 2012 editions, only the eight players with the most

Ryder Cup points qualified in this way. Therefore, a player who occupied the 8th position in 2012

in the Ryder Cup ranking had a distance to qualify of zero, a player who was first in the Ryder

Cup ranking had a distance of −7, and a player who was 25th in the Ryder Cup ranking had a

distance of +17. It is important to note that the distance to qualify is calculated based on all US

players competing in the PGA Tour, and not only on the high-ability players that are used to fit

our model (i.e., US players who have been among the top 20 US players in the OWGR for at least

one week during the qualifying period of each Ryder Cup). Had we not calculated the distance to

qualify with all players, we would not have been able to accurately represent the true position of

each player in the Ryder Cup qualifying ranking.

13J.J. Henry for the 2006 Ryder Cup was the 28th best US player in the OWGR. 14The year-by-year breakdown is 38 players (Ryder Cup 1997), 34 players (Ryder Cup 1999), 41 players

(Ryder Cup 2002), 47 players (Ryder Cup 2004), 36 players (Ryder Cup 2006), 45 players (Ryder Cup

2008), 40 players (Ryder Cup 2010) and 35 players (Ryder Cup 2012).

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Time to qualify: This measure is a percentage that reflects, on a weekly basis, the proportion of

Ryder Cup points that have already been allocated with respect to the total number of Ryder Cup

points available during a qualifying period.15 A player who is 25th in the ranking of Ryder Cup

points may give up if 95% of the Ryder Cup Points are already allocated; similarly, a first-ranked

player cannot slack off if only 50% of the points have been allocated. The points already allocated

are a more accurate measure of time than a calendar date (e.g., weeks left to qualify) to capture

how much of the contest is left since Ryder Cup points are not allocated linearly through calendar

time (i.e., the year previous to the Ryder Cup is endowed with few points).

Competitive crowding from below: Bothner et al. (2007) found that the number of competitors

capable of surpassing a given player in a tournament contest predisposes that player to risk

taking. Following a similar logic, we build a measure of crowding by lower-ranked competitors

as follows. Before the start of PGA Tour tournament 𝑡 , for each player 𝑖 , we compute the

pairwise distances between player 𝑖’s current Ryder Cup total points and that of each player

trailing him. We then calculate the number of trailing players who could catch player 𝑖 in

tournament 𝑡 if they obtain the maximum number of points while player 𝑖 earns no points. A

tournament with more points means that more players will be in a position to catch up to player 𝑖.

In sum, competitive crowding from below captures the number of lower-ranked players capable

of overtaking player 𝑖 in the Ryder Cup ranking at tournament 𝑡 . Since this information is

available to all players before each tournament, it accurately captures player perception of the risk

of losing rank positions. As in the case of ranking distance to qualify, competitive crowding is

calculated based on all US players competing in the PGA Tour, and not only on the high-ability

players that are used to fit our model.

4.4. Controls

Players compete on the PGA Tour for several years in tournaments that often take place on the

same golf courses. To capture the Ryder effect, we must take into consideration course- and

player-specific variation. The Ryder qualifying period takes place over a period of two years

during which the same tournaments are played every year, but with a different contribution

towards the Ryder contest (the second year has many more Ryder points). This provides us with a

block design that provides special insight into the Ryder effect. The next section discusses the

model in more detail. However, it is worth noting that every pair of tournaments within a Ryder

qualifying period is given a fixed effect that accounts for the specificity of that pair of

tournaments. This enables comparison of situations that are highly similar, except for their

contribution towards Ryder Cup qualification. This approximate blocked design is key to

capturing the Ryder effect. Even a change in time (e.g., because of improving technologies) is

accounted for by these parameters. The 1996 and 1997 PGA Championship tournaments, for

instance, have a common baseline which is different from the 2011 and 2012 PGA Championship

tournaments. Similarly, we also used a fixed effect for every player, capturing the different levels

of skills of each individual.

While the model can accommodate many of the differences between tournaments and players,

there is still some room for control variables. Player variables that vary over time (e.g., career

15 Tournaments excluded from the sample (see section 4.1) are not included in this calculation.

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money earnings) or tournament variables that change from year to year (e.g., weather conditions)

can capture differences at a finer level than those captured by the fixed effects of the model. The

control variables presented below all share the property of presenting a characteristic that changes

at such scales. Other variables could have been thought of as natural candidates for control, but

are rendered redundant by the model. For instance, adding a dummy representing the Major

tournaments does not provide any additional explanatory power to the model, inasmuch as the 68

Major tournaments in the sample are already represented by 32 different baselines.

Career money: We control for players’ personal wealth by calculating the money they have

accumulated in their career as professional golfers on the PGA Tour (going back as early as 1983

to account for earnings that took place before the studied period). We only take into account the

money players have earned on the course, and do not consider off-course earnings (i.e.,

endorsements). Career money is updated on a weekly basis and is not adjusted for inflation. A

player’s wealth may influence the level of motivation to qualify for a tournament that is not

endowed with direct monetary incentives but with strong non-monetary incentives.

Competitiveness of the field of players in a tournament: We calculate the competitiveness of

each tournament using the formula provided by the Official Golf World Ranking (OWGR). The

competitiveness of the field in a tournament increases with the quality of the contestants. A

stronger presence of players ranked in the top of OWGR increases the competitiveness of the

tournament. In a related vein, Boudreau et al. (2012) find that individual performance is

negatively affected by an increase in the total number of competitors, especially superstars.

Logarithm of the total prize money: This reflects the economic incentive of each tournament.

Studies by Ehrenberg and Bognanno (1990a; 1990b) show a significant influence of the

tournament purse on player performance. We included the logarithm of the total purse in

thousands of dollars deflated by the monthly consumer price index.

Weather: For each tournament, we control for the average rain (inches), average temperature

(Fahrenheit) and average wind (miles per hour), taken over the four rounds of the tournament.

Weather can influence player behavior and performance in various ways. Rain makes the golf

course more receptive and forgiving, inducing players to take risks. In cold weather the ball flies

less, eventually leading to shorter shots and worse performances. On windy days, longer shots are

more difficult to control, leading again to shorter shots and worse performances.

Golf course difficulty: The length and altitude of the golf course are used as proxies. In golf,

there is a tradeoff between the distance of the shot and its accuracy. In long golf courses with low

altitude, it is less difficult to succeed in long shots because the ball flies less. Long golf courses

may favor long hitters over short hitters. These control variables can capture the changing

characteristics of the course within the same Ryder qualifying period.

12

5. Ryder Cup Points and Player Performance

5.1. Model

To measure the Ryder effect, we fit linear models involving the variables described above. The

data used are at the event level, which means that every line will summarize the results of

tournament 𝑡 for player 𝑖. For the performance variable “Total Strokes,” we fit the following

model:

TotStrks𝑖𝑡 = 𝛽1Ryder𝑡 + 𝛽2Crowd𝑖𝑡 + 𝛽3Time𝑖𝑡 + 𝛽4Distance𝑖𝑡 + ⋯ + 𝛼1 log(TotMoney𝑡)

+ 𝛼2Competitiveness𝑡 + 𝛼3AveWind𝑡 + 𝛼4AveTemp𝑡 + 𝛼5AvePrec𝑡

+ 𝛼6CarreerMoney𝑖𝑡 + 𝛼7altitude𝑡 + 𝛼8length𝑡 + 𝛾𝑖 + 𝜏𝑔(𝑡) + 𝜀𝑖𝑡

As discussed in Section 4.1, the data feature a special design by which the same tournament is

repeated two years in a row with a different number of Ryder points available.16 Capturing this

blocking effect is important to singling out the Ryder effect, which is why we attribute a common

intercept 𝜏𝑔(𝑡) to each such block of tournaments. To be more specific, 𝑔(𝑡) is an index for 𝜏 that

takes the same value for the two occurrences of a given tournament within the same Ryder

qualifying period. In our sample, there are 342 such blocks, hence 𝑔(𝑡) ranges from 1 to 342. To

further account for tournament-level differences, control variables are also included in the model.

Total prize money available in a tournament, competitiveness of the field of players, weather

variables and golf course characteristics are subject to change within a Ryder qualifying period

and can therefore capture effects that would not be directly attributable to the Ryder competition.

To account for individual discrepancies in skills, we attribute a fixed effect (𝛾𝑖) to every player.

That is to say that each player has a different baseline performance, noted 𝛾1to 𝛾119, that plays the

role of an individual intercept. This is also why there is no global intercept (𝛽0) in the model. By

adding career money as a control variable, we account for player progression in experience as

well.

The data are in a panel and every player has repeated measurements. The error term (𝜀𝑖𝑡) must

capture this reality and model the correlation between the error terms for a player’s consecutive

tournaments. Note that players do not participate in all tournaments, which means that we must

choose a model with a correlation structure that can accommodate gaps in the sequence of

tournaments played by an individual. The error term is based on a spatial covariance structure

where the correlation between the errors of two tournaments decreases exponentially with the

number of days between those tournaments. Namely, if player 𝑖 participates in tournaments 𝑡 and

𝑡∗that are 𝑑 days apart, then cor(𝜀𝑖𝑡 , 𝜀𝑖𝑡∗) = 𝜌𝑑 where 𝜌 is a parameter common to all players.

The models for Total Strokes were fitted using PROC MIXED in SAS 9.4. All explanatory

variables in the model are standardized to allow for informal comparisons of the magnitude of

their coefficients. Interaction terms are calculated from the standardized variables.

16 Note that for the 2004 Ryder Cup, the same tournament is played three times rather than two.

13

5.2. Results

Models 1 to 9 in Table 1 report results using US players ranked among the 20 best US players in

the OWGR for at least one week during each Ryder Cup qualifying period. For several model

specifications, player performance appears to be affected by available Ryder Cup points per

tournament. Models 5, 7 and 8 indicate a positive and significant coefficient for Ryder Cup points

(β=.45***). The higher the Ryder Cup points at stake, the higher the number of total strokes (i.e.,

the worse players perform). The magnitude of the Ryder Cup point coefficient is remarkable. For

instance, for the 1997, 1999, 2002 and 2004 Ryder Cups, players scored 0.44 strokes higher in

regular tournaments than during a non-Ryder year. In a “major” tournament during a Ryder year

players score 0.29 strokes higher than in a regular tournament during a non-Ryder year. For the

2006 Ryder Cup (with a different allocation of points from previous Ryder cups), players scored

0.81 strokes higher than in a regular tournaments than during a non-Ryder year. The magnitude of

this effect is substantial, especially when we consider that an average of two (and as many as

eight) players are tied in the first position at the end of the first round of a PGA Tour tournament

(Brown, 2011).

[Insert Table 1 about here]

Three results in Table 1 provide additional evidence on the negative influence of the Ryder Cup

on player performance. First, model 2 indicates that when competitive crowding intensifies (i.e.,

there is a higher number of competitors capable of surpassing a given player in the Ryder Cup

ranking), the number of strokes per tournament increase (i.e., players perform worse). Second,

models 6 and 9 indicate that the interaction between time to qualify and Ryder points has a

negative effect on a player’s performance (i.e., it increases the number of strokes per tournament).

That is, the negative effect of Ryder points intensifies as time left to qualify runs out and there are

fewer available Ryder points. Third, models 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9 indicate that the ranking distance to

qualify is positive and significant. This means that the negative effect of trying to qualify for the

Ryder Cup is particularly strong for players who are lagging behind the interim qualified players.

Having said that, this result may just reflect that worse players play worse and that is why they

are lagging behind interim qualified players. To further understand this result, we performed an

analysis to identify the type of players who underperform as qualifying time runs out and

competitive crowding intensifies. We describe the results in the next paragraphs.

We fitted a model with the main explanatory variables, disaggregated based on the interim

position of the players in the Ryder Cup ranking (i.e., ranking distance to qualify). Interim

“qualified” players are those who occupy positions 1 through 10 in the Ryder Cup ranking.

Interim “in contention” players are those ones who occupy the 10 positions below the

qualification threshold. Players who are more than 10 ranks away from the qualification threshold

are considered “close to contention.” The results, reported in Table 2, indicate two main findings.

First, we find significant evidence that “in contention” and “close to contention” players

underperform when they face the risk of losing ranking positions in favor of their nearest

14

downwards rival. The players who suffer the most from the competitive crowding effect are

“close to contention” players (β=.661***), followed by “in contention” players (β=.233*).

Second, time-to-qualify coefficients indicate that “in contention” (β=.246*) and “close to

contention” (β=.237*) players underperform as time to qualify runs out. In sum, Table 2 indicates

that the Ryder Cup contest exerts the greatest pressure on players in more desperate need of

Ryder points.


The reason why even “close to contention” players feel the pressure to qualify for the Ryder Cup

can be found in the Ryder qualifying points system. This system allocates points is such a way

that players who finish in the top positions of a PGA Tour tournament earn a lot of points. Since

the prize distribution in a tournament is highly convex, the very top tournament finishers earn a

disproportionate amount of Ryder points. Consequently, an interim “close to contention” player

can become an interim “qualified” player if he excels in two consecutive tournaments towards the

end of the qualifying period. To illustrate this phenomenon, we plotted a histogram (see Figure 1)

that represents the competitive crowding from below of the players with top ranking positions in

the last tournament of the Ryder cup qualifying period (PGA Championship). The X axis reflects

the ranking distance to qualify. The more negative the distance is, the better qualified a player is.

A distance of 0 indicates that the player is on the threshold between qualifying and not qualifying.

The Y axis reflects competitive crowding (i.e., number of lower-ranked players who could reach

that position with a win in the tournament while other direct contenders gain no points). The plot

shows, for instance, that in the 2010 Ryder, the last interim “qualified” player (represented by 0 in

the X axis) could have been caught by more than 20 different players if any of them won the PGA

Championship and he did not earn any Ryder points. In conclusion, this plot illustrates the fact

that, although improbable, even a “close to contention” player could get into the Ryder Cup team

if he wins the last tournament of the qualifying period.

[Insert Figure 1 about here]

To provide further evidence on how competitive pressure remains until the end of the Ryder cup

qualifying period, we plot two types of player trajectories that reflect the following: first, players

who had been interim “qualified” throughout most of the qualifying period and lost their position

at the very end (see Figure 2); and second, players who had been interim “in contention” and

“close to contention” throughout the whole qualifying period and won a position in the US Ryder

Cup team at the very end (see Figure 3). The Y axis reflects the number of Ryder Cup points

accumulated. The X axis reflects the dates of the Ryder qualifying period. As the time to qualify

elapses, the number of accumulated Ryder points increases. There are three types of dots in the

plot: 1) dark grey dots (on top of the distribution) reflect the Ryder points of “qualified” players;

15

2) light grey dots (middle of the distribution) reflect the Ryder points of “in contention” players;

and 3) medium grey dots (bottom of the distribution) reflect the Ryder points of “in contention”

players. The continuous black line reflects the player’s trajectory. In Figure 2, for example, we

can see the trajectory of Bubba Watson (position 3 in 2010), who spent almost the whole

qualifying period as a “close to contention” player and obtained a “qualified” position in the last

month of the qualifying period. On the contrary, in Figure 3, for example, we can see the

trajectory of Tom Lehman (position 11 in 2002), who spent almost two years as a “qualified”

player and lost this position in the last tournament of the qualifying period. Figures 2 and 3

provide just a few examples of the many players who won or lost their positions towards the end

of the Ryder Cup qualifying period. In sum, an overall analysis of the plots indicates that, except

for a very few players at the very top of the Ryder Cup point distribution (positions 1 to 4), most

of the players struggle to earn a position in the US Ryder Cup team until the end of the qualifying

period, resulting in choking under pressure.

[Insert Figures 2 and 3 about here]

5.3. Robustness Checks

5.3.1. Low-ability Players on the PGA Tour

Only a subset of players on the PGA Tour is truly competing to qualify for the US Ryder Cup

team. So far our analysis has focused on those players who have a real chance of qualifying (i.e.,

US players who have been among the top 20 US players in the OWGR for at least one week

during each Ryder Cup qualifying period). However, there is a subset of low-ability players (i.e.,

low ranked in the OWGR) playing on the PGA Tour who have no chance whatsoever of

qualifying for the US Ryder Cup team. In this robustness check, we test whether the performance

of these low-ability players is also adversely affected when playing in a PGA Tour tournament

with high Ryder Cup points. Since these players are not competing to qualify for the Ryder Cup,

their performance should not vary when playing in the same tournament across Ryder and non-

Ryder years. We ran alternative models for players who have never reached the top 125, top 100,

and top 50 positions in the OWGR during a Ryder Cup qualification period. Since 1996, no

player who met these criteria has qualified for the US Ryder Cup team. As shown in table 3,

results confirm that the Ryder Cup points available in a tournament do not exert a significant

negative influence on low-ranked players, contrary to what happens with highly ranked players.


16

5.3.2. High-ability European Players on the PGA Tour

Between 1996 and 2004 (both included), European players participating in the PGA Tour could

earn money but not points to qualify for the European Ryder Cup team. In an effort to retain the

best European players in Europe (only elite European players would participate in the PGA Tour),

the European Tour did not consider the performance of European players playing in the PGA

Tour in determining whether they qualified for the European Ryder Cup team.17 Consequently,

during the 1997, 1999, 2002 and 2004 Ryder Cups, there was a subset of high-ability European

players who were not subject to the pressure of Ryder Cup points when they participated in the

PGA Tour tournaments.18 In an additional robustness check, we tested whether these players

suffered from underperformance. As shown in table 4, we do not find significant evidence that

tournaments with a higher allocation of Ryder Cup points made these players underperform,

contrary to the case for highly-ranked US players.


6. Alternative Explanation to Choking under Pressure.

6.1. Risk Taking

The underperformance of players in contention to qualify for the Ryder Cup could be due to the

fact that they take more risks due to the tightness of competition as time to qualify runs out. In

golf, like in many other contests, competing players have to choose not only the amount of effort

they exert, but also the riskiness of their actions (Brown and Li, 2010). Previous empirical

research on risk-taking in tournaments has shown two relevant findings for our study. The first

finding is that when competition is tight, contenders are prone to adopt risky strategies. Bothner et

al., (2007) show empirical evidence on how competitive crowding induces NASCAR drivers to

adopt risk-taking conduct. Brown and Li (2010) find that golfers tend to take risks when the

competition is tight and play more safely when competition is less intense. The second finding is

that an agent’s position in the performance distribution of a tournament influences his willingness

to take risks. Trailing agents tend to adopt risky strategies while leading agents revert to safe

strategies. Taylor (2003) and Kempf et al., (2009) show that in mutual fund tournaments,

managers classified as interim losers during a performance assessment usually switch to riskier

portfolios. Goldman and Rao (2012) and Grund, Hoecker and Zimmermann (2013) find evidence

that when NBA teams are lagging behind, they engage in risk-taking strategies. Genakos and

Pagliero (2012) find in weight-lifting contests, that while weightlifters adopt riskier strategies as

17For various political reasons, this criterion changed after 2005, and since then, European players can earn

points to qualify for the European Ryder Cup team through their performance in PGA Tour tournaments. 18Within the period 1997 and 2004, the three major tournaments and three world championship tournaments

held in US have to be excluded because, exceptionally, they did count for the European Ryder Cup Team

qualification.

17

they advance in a tournament’s ranking, they revert to safer strategies when they get towards the

top positions of the ranking.

As Figure 1 shows, except for a few of the very top “qualified” players, the vast majority of

interim “qualified” and interim “in contention” players are crammed in a short margin of Ryder

points. It is sufficient for the eighth interim “qualified” player to underperform in two consecutive

tournaments for the nearest downwards rivals to overtake him. According to the literature on risk-

taking in tournaments, this could induce players to take more risks in order to advance in the

ranking of the Ryder Cup qualifying contest. However, by taking more risks golfers, increase the

variance of their performance (Brown, 2011). Underperformance may be driven by risk-taking

strategies rather than choking under pressure. In order to rule out this possibility, we test whether

golfers actually take more risks when trying to qualify for the Ryder Cup.

6.1.1. Measures of Risk Taking

Golfers can take different types of risky decisions depending on where the ball lies on the golf

course. In this study, we use two different measures of risk taking: the first measure is called

“going for it” and is associated with risk taking in long shots (Brown, 2011); and the second

measure is called “risky putts” and is associated with risk taking in short shots (Pope and

Schweitzer, 2011). These risk decisions are described below.

Going for it: Each of a golf course’s 18 holes consists of a tee box as the starting point, a putting

green containing the hole and serving as the end point, and a fairway, the area between the tee

box and the putting green. Depending on the length of the fairway, a hole can be categorized as

par-3 (i.e., holes in which the player generally lands the ball in the putting green in 1 shot), par-4

(i.e., holes in which the player generally lands the ball in the putting green in 2 shots) or par-5

(i.e., holes in which the player generally lands the in the ball in the putting green in 3 shots). The

remaining two shots for each of these hole types are the number normally required to sink the ball

in the hole. The first type of risk decision is the one a player takes on the tee box or the fairway,

and it concerns how far he has to shoot to land the ball on the putting green. In some par-4

holes,19 some players try to reach the green in 1 shot (rather than 2 shots), and in some par-5

holes,20 some players try to reach the green in 2 shots (rather than 3 shots).

Whenever a player faces a “going for it” hole, he must choose between “going for it” and “not

going for it.” That is, he must choose whether or not he wants to try to land the ball on the putting

green in fewer shots than is normal. “Going for it” necessarily means a longer shot. In golf, like in

many other sports, there is a trade-off between long distance and accuracy: a conservative shot

gains accuracy at the expense of distance. Accordingly, if a player takes the risk and hits a long

shot that ends close to the hole, this will typically lead him to a better score. However, the hole is

often obstructed by water and sand hazards. Not hitting the green may mean that the player ends

up in an undesirable location, leading to a more difficult next shot and, consequently, a worse

19The PGA Tour categorizes a par-4 hole as a “going for it hole” if at least 10% of the field land their first

shot in the putting green or around the putting green. 20The PGA Tour categorizes all par-5 holes as “going for it holes.”

18

score. From 2002, the ShotLink® data specifies which holes are “going for it” holes and whether

each player “went for it” or not. The unit of analysis of our paper is the tournament, hence our

measure of “going for it” is a fraction of the number of attempts at going for it divided by the

number of such opportunities in a given tournament (the models used require both the numerator

and the denominator of this fraction).

Risky putt: The second type of risk decision is made on the putting green. A player can make a

risky putt by hitting the ball too strong and pushing the ball past the hole. Hitting the ball lightly

decreases the probability of making the putt, but it also makes the next putt easier. In contrast, an

aggressive putt increases the probability of making the first putt. However, if the hole is missed,

the ball will pass the hole by several inches and the subsequent shot will be more difficult. We

take the measure of risky putts from Pope and Schweitzer (2011). We examine first putts that

were initially between 10 and 40 feet away from the hole. If the putt is short by more than 27

inches, it is considered a safe putt. If the putt is missed by more than 27 inches past the hole, it is

considered a risky putt. To create a round measure, we calculate the percentage of first putts that

were risky in each tournament. Even if this value is a fraction that typically varies between 2%

and 35%, its distribution is surprisingly close to symmetric and we model it as if it were a

continuous variable.

6.1.2. Model

We fit two different models of risk taking. The first model uses Going for it as dependent

variable. We use a generalized linear model where Going for it is modeled as a binomial variable.

The structure of the model is otherwise identical to TotStrks. The second model uses Risky putts

as dependent variable. Since we consider the Risky putts variable as if it were continuous, the

model definition for this variable is identical to that previously presented for Total Strokes. In

particular, the numerous fixed effects that help capture the Ryder effect are used again, as well as

the same spatial correlation structure.

To be more specific, if player 𝑖 participates in tournament 𝑡 where there are ℎ𝑡 going-for-it holes,

then the number of times this player goes for it is a binomial variable with ℎ𝑡 tries and a

probability 𝑝𝑖𝑡 of going for it at each of these holes. The model that we fit is then:

logit(𝑝𝑖𝑡) = 𝛽1Ryder𝑡 + 𝛽2Crowd𝑖𝑡 + 𝛽3Time𝑖𝑡 + 𝛽4Distance𝑖𝑡 + ⋯ + 𝛼1 log(TotMoney𝑡)

+ 𝛼2Competitiveness𝑡 + 𝛼3AveWind𝑡 + 𝛼4AveTemp𝑡 + 𝛼5AvePrec𝑡

+ 𝛼6CarreerMoney𝑖𝑡 + 𝛼7altitude𝑡 + 𝛼8length𝑡 + 𝛾𝑖 + 𝜏𝑔(𝑡) + 𝜀𝑖𝑡

where logit is the logistic link function, 𝛾𝑖 is still a baseline for each player, 𝑔(𝑡) an index

representing pairs of tournaments within a Ryder qualifying period, and 𝜏𝑔(𝑡) the baseline of that

group of tournaments. In addition, the error term 𝜀𝑖𝑡 is such that the correlation of the error terms

from a same player will decay exponentially with the time between the two events.

Note that the information about Going-for-it holes is only available from 2002 and some

tournaments do not have any Going-for-it holes. As a consequence, we have 91 players over 194

groups of tournaments in this model, hence 91 levels for 𝛾 and 194 values for 𝜏.The Going-for-it

model was fitted using PROC GLIMMIX in SAS 9.4. We used the same standardized

19

explanatory variables as before to allow for informal comparisons of the magnitude of their

coefficients (we did not perform another standardization of the variables on the reduced sample).

6.1.3. Results

Tables 5 and 6 report results on player risk taking both in long-game (i.e., going for it) and in

short-game (i.e., risky putts) situations, respectively. Neither the results in Table 5 nor those in

Table 6 indicate that US players adopt more risky strategies when they face tournaments with

more Ryder Cup points at stake. In both Tables 5 and 6, the coefficients for Ryder Cup points

indicate that when more Ryder points are at stake, players become risk averse and play it safe.

Coefficients for ranking distance to qualify also show that players who are lagging behind the

qualified players take fewer risks. In sum, risk-taking can be discarded as an alternative

explanation for the underperformance of interim “qualified” and “in-contention” players when

they are trying to qualify for the USA Ryder Cup team.

[Insert Table 5 and 6 about here]

6.2. The Adverse Incentive Effect of Competing with a Superstar

Brown (2011) finds that the presence of a superstar in a PGA Tour tournament has a negative

influence on other players’ performance. Specifically, she finds that the presence of Tiger Woods

in a PGA Tour tournament is associated with lower performance by other players. On average,

golfers play worse when Woods is in the field than when he does not participate. This adverse

effect varies with the quality of Woods’s play; the adverse effect is larger when Woods is playing

well. The adverse effect also varies with the ability of the opponents; it is larger for higher-skilled

golfers (i.e., top positions in the OWGR) than for lower-skilled players (i.e., low positions or not

ranked in the OWGR). Accordingly, a plausible alternative explanation to player

underperformance in tournaments with high Ryder Cup points at stake could be that Tiger Woods

is present and in contention to win the tournament. According to Brown’s results, the players

most adversely influenced by Woods being in contention are those who occupy top positions in

the OWGR. These are precisely the players competing to qualify for the Ryder Cup team.

In order to rule out this possibility, we introduce a new control that captures whether Woods is in

contention to win the tournament at the beginning of the last round. We define “Woods in

contention” in the last round as being 4 or fewer strokes distant from the tournament leader, since

he has been able to win 22 PGA Tour tournaments starting the 4th round with 4 or fewer strokes

far from the leader. Table 7 reports results on players’ performance when Woods is in contention

to win the tournament in the last round. Consistent with Brown’s findings, the results confirm that

uoods being in contention is negatively associated with player performance (i.e., the total number

of strokes increase). However, the coefficients for Ryder points, ranking distance to qualify and

the interaction term (Ryder points* Time to qualify) remain significant. Results are robust to

several model specifications.

20


6.3. Off-the-Course Incomes

Even though we control for both total career earnings (on the course) of each player and the prize

money of each individual tournament, one could wonder if qualifying for the US Ryder Cup team

increases a player’s marketability and therefore his off-the-course earnings. Golf is a sport where

a significant percentage of player`s incomes are derived from corporate endorsements (Sirak,

2014), and a players’ presence in the Ryder Cup could result in improved endorsement contracts.

Ariely et al. (2009) provide experimental evidence across multiple tasks that higher monetary

incentives can lead to worse performance. If this were the case, then the underperformance of

players who are in contention to qualify for the Ryder Cup could be due to the pressure derived

from potential monetary rewards such as an improvement in their endorsement contracts, rather

than to the burden of reaching for glory.

Despite the fact that the vast majority of players contending to qualify for the Ryder Cup are

already millionaires with important endorsement contracts, and previous research has shown that

golfers play better when there are higher monetary rewards at stake (Brown, 2011; Ehrenberg and

Bognanno, 1990a & 1990b), we would like to rule out the possibility that qualifying or not for the

Ryder Cup indeed represents an important improvement in their endorsement contracts. To this

end, we test the effect of qualifying for the USA Ryder Cup team on players’ off-the-course

incomes with the Golf Digest® database.

Golf Digest® is arguably the most reputed magazine in the golf world. Every year since 2003,

Golf Digest® gathers information on the annual off-the-course incomes of the world`s top 50

earners. While the Golf Digest® database includes some European, Asian, Australian, African

players, the great majority of observations are on US players. This merely reflects the fact that

endorsement contracts for golfers playing in the PGA Tour is substantial (Chung et al., 2013).

Golf Digest® compiles off-the-course figures through interviews with agents, players, executives

of companies involved with endorsements and industry analysts. Off-the-course money includes

estimates of all money earned from endorsements, bonuses, appearance fees, corporate outings,

speaking engagements, licensing fees (e.g., video games), course architecture, books,

instructional videos, and businesses based on the golfer`s status as a player, such as clothing.

Investment incomes are not included.

This unique dataset allows us to test, from 2003 until 2013 (5 Ryder Cups), whether qualifying or

not for the US Ryder Cup team had an impact on off-the-course incomes. Specifically, we test for

two effects: First, the effect on off-the course incomes of having qualified for the previous Ryder

Cup but not qualifying for the present Ryder Cup (“Lost Ryder Cup participation”). Second, the

effect on off-the course incomes of not having qualified for the previous Ryder Cup but

qualifying for the present Ryder Cup (“Gained Ryder Cup participation”). That is, we want to

estimate the effect on off-the-course incomes of qualifying for someone who had not qualified in

21

the past (and vice-versa). The gained and lost participations are coded as separate binary variables

that can then capture the value of a change in the Ryder Cup participation status.

We run a model in which the off-the-course incomes are taken with a one year lag (year after the

Ryder Cup vs year after the previous Ryder Cup) to allow for the fact that the variation in income

occurs after the players have participated in the Ryder Cup. The dependent variable is the

logarithm of the ratio between off-the-course earnings in the year after the Ryder and the off-the-

course earnings for the year previous to the Ryder. The dependent variable thus represents a

relative increase in off-the-course money. The fact that the same player can appear several times

in the database is accounted for by using a spatial covariance structure for the error where the

correlation between the errors of two data from the same player is modelled and decreases

exponentially with time.


Table 8 shows evidence that winning a “major”21 is the factor driving the increase of off-the-

course incomes both in the year of the Ryder Cup and the year after the Ryder Cup. That is, US

players who win a major during a Ryder year see their off-course incomes increased the year after

the Ryder. However, we do not find significant evidence indicating that qualifying for the Ryder

Cup after not having participated in the previous Ryder Cup (“Gained Ryder Cup participation”)

or not qualifying for the Ryder Cup after having participated in the previous Ryder Cup (“Lost

Ryder Cup participation”) have an impact on off-the-course incomes.

These results are not surprising. It is indeed questionable whether companies who hire golfers to

endorse their products would be ready to make significant improvements in their contracts

because of a player’s appearance in the Ryder Cup. First, endorsing companies cannot publicize

their logos on player`s clothing during the Ryder Cup; players are only allowed to wear the Ryder

Cup logo on their clothing while playing the Ryder Cup. Second, before or after the Ryder Cup,

endorsing companies cannot use the Ryder Cup’s logo or name to advertise their players. Third,

in major and regular PGA Tour tournaments such restrictions do not exist and endorsing

companies gain great exposure through players` performance/appearance.

One could argue that our results are driven by the fact that we do the analysis with the top 50 off-

the-course earners, and that choking under pressure is mainly a phenomenon occurring among

players outside that list, for whom qualifying for the Ryder Cup could represent a significant

improvement in their off-the-course incomes. We would like to add two arguments to mitigate

this concern: First, for the period 2003 to 2013, 75% of US players who qualify for the Ryder

Cup are included in the top 50 earners database. This means that, despite the fact that the majority

of players who qualify for the Ryder Cup already have superstar status, they still choke under

21 There are four major championships during the season (i.e., Augusta Masters, US Open, British Open

and PGA Championship). These four tournaments have a greater allocation of prize money than regular

tournaments and give players an extraordinary media exposure.

22

pressure when trying to qualify for the Ryder Cup. As we saw in section 5.2, except for a very

few of the top “qualified” players (positions 1 to 4), the vast majority of interim “qualified” and

interim “in contention” players choke under pressure when trying to qualify for the Ryder Cup.

Second, in our study we showed that in the recent history of the Ryder Cup, the only players to

qualify for the Ryder Cup are the ones who were ranked among the top-20 US players of the

OWGR. Thus, the probability of having a player with a non-star status in that list is extremely

low.

7. Discussion

A fundamental tenet of economics is that “incentives matter.” Indeed, it is a basic principle that

high-powered pecuniary incentives are generally needed to elicit greater effort, which, in turn,

leads to superior performance by individuals and firms. Nevertheless, a growing literature has

begun to consider the role of non-monetary incentives such as status, social esteem and respect.

Our study complements the existing economics literature on non-monetary incentives. One

branch of the recent theoretical literature considers the role of non-monetary rewards in the

context of behavioral agency theory. Another branch considers the role of status based on position

in a monetary distribution of wealth, income or consumption. The general conclusion of the

literature, both theoretical and empirical, thus far is that non-monetary awards can provide

effective incentives, and in some cases may be better at aligning objectives of agents and

principals than financial incentives.

We provide evidence suggesting that competition for a non-monetary reward can have adverse

incentive effects, contrary to previous conclusions of the literature. Examining the behavior of

elite US players between 1996 and 2012, we show large and significant effects indicating that

players perform worse when trying to qualify for the US Ryder Cup Team. We find significant

evidence that the desire to attain glory is a burden for player performance, and that players who

underperform the most are those who are in more desperate need of Ryder Cup points. We

discard the possibility that underperformance is due to risk-taking strategies, and show that

players actually become risk averse and adopt safe strategies when they are about to qualify for

the US Ryder Cup team. We also discard the possibility that underperformance is due to the

intimidating presence of a superstar in the tournament. We find that qualifying for the Ryder Cup

team does not affect off-the-course incomes, thus making it unlikely that underperformance is

driven by the pressure of future expected income, as in Ariely et al. (2009). Choking under the

burden of glory rather than risk taking, intimidation by superstars, or potential increase in

incomes seems to be the reason behind underperformance when competitive pressure intensifies.

Our study is not the first to document the phenomenon of choking under pressure. This

phenomenon has been studied by experimental psychologists and behavioral economists, who

have explored the various reasons for skill failure (De Caro et. al., 2011; Baumeister and

Showers, 1986). Ariely et al. (2009) provide experimental evidence across multiple tasks that

higher monetary incentives can lead to worse performance. Genakos and Pagliero (2012) find that

23

competitors in weightlifting contests systematically underperform when ranked closer to the top,

despite higher incentives to perform well. Dohmen (2008) and Apesteguia and Palacios-Huerta

(2010) find that soccer players underperform under the pressure of penalty shoot-outs. However,

to the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to provide evidence of the existence of choking

under pressure when explicitly competing for non-monetary incentives.

In a more speculative vein, one could ask what psychological mechanisms can explain the

negative relationship between incentives and performance. While a detailed exploration is beyond

the scope of this study, one plausible explanation for the negative effect of high powered

incentives (in our case, non-monetary incentives) that is aligned with anecdotal evidence from the

golfing world is that they can cause individuals, involuntarily, to think about the task. Camerer et

al., (2005) have documented how shifting behavior from “automatic” mental processes to

“controlled” mental processes can be detrimental for the task, especially when the task is highly

automated (like swinging a golf club). That is, a golfer who is in contention to qualify for the

Ryder Cup may occupy his mind with thoughts about how his life would be if he qualified for the

US Ryder Cup team, distracting him from the task at hand and making him underperform under

pressure. This explanation is consistent with the statement of pro-golfer Brad Faxon, eight-time

PGA Tour winner, who referred to the process of qualifying for the Ryder Cup with the following

words: “I wanted to play well so badly. That’s as much pressure as I’ve ever put on myself. I was

so worried about the results and the outcome that it took me out of my game. But how can you

not think about the Ryder Cup? Every day you’re home, you get a mailer from the PGA telling

you what position you’re in. The points table is posted on the walls of the locker room, right

above the urinals. It’s in your locker. It’s in the newspapers. People are asking you months in

advance for tickets, and you’re not even on the team” (Rosaforte, 1996). More research is needed

on these issues.

24

TABLE 1

Regression Results for Total Strokes

Variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6 Model 7 Model 8 Model 9

Ryder Cup Points 0.165** . . . 0.450*** 0.247 0.447** 0.444*** 0.245

Competitive Crowding . 0.487*** . . 0.027 0.058 0.027 0.031 0.060

Time to Qualify . . 0.072 . -.272 0.077 -.270 -.263 0.075

Ranking Distance to Qualify . . . 0.349*** 0.297*** 0.276*** 0.299*** 0.344*** 0.311***

Time to Qualify × Ryder Cup Points . . . . . .572** . . .555**

Time to Qualify × Competitive Crowding . . . . . . -.006 . -.007

Time to Qualify × Ranking Distance to Qualify . . . . . . . -.083 -.057

Total Money -1.91*** 0.978* -1.75*** -.800 -.417 -1.17 -.417 -.447 -1.16

Competitiveness 0.473** 0.707*** 0.596*** 0.670*** 0.423* 0.376 0.424* 0.412* 0.371

Wind 2.333*** 2.457*** 2.223*** 2.464*** 2.528*** 2.544*** 2.528*** 2.529*** 2.543***

Temperature -1.33*** -1.19*** -1.17*** -1.28*** -1.32*** -1.28*** -1.32*** -1.32*** -1.28***

Total Precipitation -1.32*** -1.76*** -1.13*** -1.93*** -2.07*** -2.09*** -2.07*** -2.08*** -2.10***

Career Money -.436** -.447** -.390** -.405** -.389* -.445** -.389* -.403* -.453**

Altitude -.010 -.736 0.223 -.609 -.759 -.629 -.761 -.755 -.632

Course Length 0.278 0.413* 0.625*** 0.211 0.096 0.071 0.096 0.087 0.067

Number of Observations 7733 6672 8272 6463 6162 6162 6162 6162 6162

Number of Players 110 108 110 108 108 108 108 108 108

The p-values are indicated by asterisks (*≤10%, **≤5%, ***≤1%)

25

TABLE 2

Regression Results for “Qualified,” “In-contention” and “Close-to-Contention”

Ranking Positions: Total Strokes

Variable Total Strokes

Competitive Crowding

Qualified 0.210

In Contention 0.233*

Close to Contention 0.661***

Time to Qualify

Qualified -.027

In Contention 0.246*

Close to Contention 0.237*

Total Money 0.227

Competitiveness 0.454*

Wind 2.446***

Temperature -1.27***

Total Precipitation -1.98***

Career Money -.535**

Altitude -.820

Course Length 0.202

Number of Observations 6371

Number of Players 108


26

FIGURE 1: Competitive Crowding for the Best Interim Qualified Players before the Last Tournament of the Ryder Qualifying Period

27

FIGURE 2: Trajectory of US Ryder Cup Team Players Who Earned the Position at the End of the Ryder Cup Qualifying Period

28

FIGURE 3: Trajectory of Players Who Lost Their Position in the US Ryder Cup Team at the End of the Ryder Cup Qualifying Period

29

TABLE 3

Regression Results for “Low-ability” Players: Total Strokes22

Never Reached Top-50 of OWGR Never Reached Top-100 of OWGR Never Reached Top-125 of OWGR


Ryder Cup Points -.105 . 0.169 -.085 . 0.228 -.069 . 0.237

Time to Qualify . -.236*** -.399** . -.284*** -.485*** . -.252*** -.466**

Time to Qualify × Ryder Cup Points . . 0.134 . . 0.052 . . 0.076

Total Money -.175 0.174 0.389 -.181 0.240 0.427 -.038 0.327 0.519

Competitiveness -.130 -.081 -.133 -.081 0.013 -.075 -.120 -.051 -.112

Wind 2.380*** 2.409*** 2.378*** 2.255*** 2.302*** 2.278*** 2.394*** 2.447*** 2.409***

Temperature -1.07*** -1.03*** -1.05*** -1.10*** -.994*** -1.03*** -1.04*** -.951*** -.975***

Total Precipitations -1.44*** -1.39*** -1.43*** -1.21*** -1.14*** -1.22*** -1.42*** -1.36*** -1.42***

Career Money -.849*** -.711*** -.765*** -.808*** -.646*** -.707*** -.865*** -.666** -.744***

Altitude -3.32*** -3.42*** -3.45*** -2.67*** -2.69*** -2.84*** -2.76** -2.88*** -2.90***

Course Length 2.270*** 2.356*** 2.334*** 2.284*** 2.464*** 2.363*** 2.255*** 2.385*** 2.324***



22We did not include “competitive crowding” or “ranking distance to qualify” in these models because these are variables were specifically design to measure the

competitive pressure of players who were truly in contention to qualify for the Ryder Cup. These variables are not relevant for players who are at the bottom of

the Ryder Cup points ranking.

30

TABLE 4

Regression Results for European Players on the PGA Tour: Total Strokes

Variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Ryder Cup Points -.352 . -.639

Time to Qualify . -.379 0.104

Time to Qualify × Ryder Cup Points . . -.525

Total Money 0.236 0.387 0.002

Competitiveness 0.658 0.567 0.711

Wind 3.511*** 3.598*** 3.557***

Temperature -1.05** -1.15** -1.19**

Total Precipitations -2.38* -2.47** -2.44*

Career Money -.214 -.178 -.184

Altitude -3.89 -4.08 -3.61

Course Length 1.528*** 1.396*** 1.456***

Number of Observations 783 783 783

Number of Players 77 77 77

31

TABLE 5

Regression Results for Risky-Strategy Measures: Going for it


Ryder Cup Points -.022** . . . -.018 -.098*** -.007 -.018 -.082**

Competitive Crowding . -.028** . . -.014 -.004 -.013 -.014 -.004

Time to Qualify . . -.010 . 0.013 0.142*** 0.008 0.013 0.132***

Ranking Distance to Qualify . . . -.042*** -.033** -.039*** -.041*** -.033** -.043***

Time to qualify × Ryder Cup Points . . . . . -.144*** . . -.135***

Time to qualify × Competitive Crowding . . . . . . 0.032** . 0.035**

Time to qualify × Ranking distance to Qualify . . . . . . . -.001 -.010

Total Money 0.134* -.053 0.154* -.102 -.143 -.373*** -.141 -.143 -.361***

Competitiveness 0.008 -.044 0.005 -.053* -.039 -.041 -.038 -.039 -.040

Wind -.104*** -.094*** -.115*** -.090*** -.084*** -.078*** -.080*** -.084*** -.073***

Temperature 0.069*** 0.077*** 0.071*** 0.086*** 0.081*** 0.101*** 0.082*** 0.081*** 0.100***

Total Precipitation 0.092*** 0.036 0.087*** 0.035 0.035 0.044 0.036 0.035 0.041

Career Money 0.063* 0.077** 0.047 0.052 0.047 0.024 0.049 0.047 0.023

Altitude -.338*** -.321*** -.324*** -.317*** -.308*** -.258** -.301*** -.308*** -.252**

Course Length -.042 -.062 0.001 -.042 -.061 -.084* -.059 -.062 -.082*

Number of Going for It Holes 67868 59605 75025 58561 54521 54521 54521 54521 54521

Number of Observations (Tournaments) 5063 4458 5602 4360 4059 4059 4059 4059 4059



32

TABLE 6

Regression Results for Risky-strategy Measures: Risky Putts


Ryder Cup Points -.003*** . . . -.002 -.009*** -.003 -.002 -.012***

Competitive Crowding . -.001 . . 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.002

Time to Qualify . . -.004*** . -.002 0.010** -.002 -.002 0.012**

Ranking Distance to Qualify . . . -.002** -.002** -.003** -.002 -.002 -.002*

Time to qualify × Ryder Cup Points . . . . . -.012*** . . -.013***

Time to qualify × Competitive Crowding . . . . . . -.004*** . -.005***

Time to qualify × Ranking Distance to Qualify . . . . . . . -.001 0.001

Total Money 0.012 0.028** 0.016* 0.028** 0.032*** 0.019 0.031*** 0.031*** 0.017

Competitiveness 0.003 0.000 0.002 0.000 0.003 0.003 0.002 0.003 0.003

Wind 0.006*** 0.006*** 0.006*** 0.006*** 0.007*** 0.007*** 0.006*** 0.007*** 0.007***

Temperature -.002 -.002 -.002 -.003 -.002 0.000 -.002 -.002 0.001

Total Precipitations 0.000 0.001 -.001 0.002 0.005 0.005 0.005 0.004 0.006

Career Money 0.000 -.001 0.000 -.003 0.001 0.000 0.001 0.000 0.000

Altitude 0.123* 0.036 0.090** 0.027 -.059 -.020 -.074 -.052 -.041

Course Length -.004 -.009** -.005 -.008* -.006 -.008* -.007 -.007 -.009*




33

TABLE 7

Regression Results for Woods in Contention to Win the Tournament: Total Strokes


Tiger Woods in Contention 1.305*** 1.344*** 1.684*** 1.423*** 1.341*** 1.327*** 1.343*** 1.350*** 1.335***

Ryder Cup Points 0.183** . . . 0.439** 0.242 0.429** 0.432** 0.236

Competitive Crowding . 0.468*** . . 0.016 0.045 0.015 0.020 0.047

Time to Qualify . . 0.146 . -.202 0.136 -.196 -.191 0.138

Ranking Distance to Qualify . . . 0.347*** 0.294*** 0.274*** 0.299*** 0.345*** 0.313***

Time to Qualify × Ryder Cup Points . . . . . .555** . . .539**

Time to Qualify ×Competitive Crowding . . . . . . -.019 . -.016

Time to Qualify ×Ranking Distance to Qualify . . . . . . . -.092 -.062

Total Money -2.10*** 0.785 -2.18*** -1.02* -.821 -1.55** -.820 -.856 -1.16

Competitiveness 0.540*** 0.794*** 0.662*** 0.773*** 0.504** 0.458* 0.505** 0.492** 0.371

Wind 2.406*** 2.542*** 2.324*** 2.561*** 2.602*** 2.616*** 2.600*** 2.603*** 2.543***

Temperature -1.32*** -1.16*** -1.19*** -1.26*** -1.30*** -1.27*** -1.30*** -1.31*** -1.28***

Total Precipitation -1.36*** -1.72*** -1.21*** -1.88*** -2.04*** -2.06*** -2.04*** -2.06*** -2.10***

Career Money -.430** -.434** -.413** -.387* -.400* -.455** -.400* -.415* -.453**

Altitude 0.227 -.396 0.506 -.231 -.401 -.278 -.405 -.394 -.632

Course Length 0.224 0.357* 0.501** 0.147 0.023 0.001 0.025 0.013 0.067




34

TABLE 8

Regression Results for “Lost and Gained Ryder Participation”: Increase in Off-

the-Course Incomes for the Year After Ryder Cup

Variable log(income next year / income last year)

Intercept 0.098

Lost Ryder participation -0.082

Gained Ryder participation 0.204

Majors won 0.272**

Majors participated 0.051

% of top-10s in regular tournaments 0.083

% of victories in regular tournaments -0.162

Number of Observations 56

Number of Players 37


35

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39

Appendix I – Ryder Cup Qualifying Points System

For the 1997, 1999 and 2002 Ryder Cups, the total number of points allocated in each tournament

is given below. The Non-Ryder Year events take place from the beginning of the calendar year

(e.g., January 1996 for the 1997 Ryder Cup) until the PGA Championship). The Ryder qualifying

period ends with the PGA Championship, except in 1996, 1998 and 1999 when the Sprint

International tournament took place one week after the PGA championship but was nonetheless

considered as part of the same year.

† If a player who was ineligible (e.g., he is not American) finishes in one of these positions, the Ryder cup awards no

points for that position and no points are carried to the next position.

‡If two players finish tied (e.g., 3rd position), the Ryder Cup sums the 3rd and 4th position’s points and divides them by

two to find out their respective points. The player who finishes 4th in the ranking of the tournament will be 5th in the

Ryder points system. Similarly, if nine players finish tied in the 2nd position, the Ryder Cup sums all the Ryder points

from positions 2nd to 10th and divides them by nine. The player who finishes in the 3rd position of the tournament

would get 0 Ryder points.

Ryder Cups 1997, 1999 and 2002 – US Team Qualifying Points System †‡

Finishing Position

Regular Events Major Events

Non-Ryder Year Ryder Year Non-Ryder Year Ryder Year

1st 75 150 225 300

2nd 45 90 135 180

3rd 40 80 120 160

4th 35 70 105 140

5th 30 60 90 120

6th 25 50 75 100

7th 20 40 60 80

8th 15 30 45 60

9th 10 20 30 40

10th 5 10 15 20

40

Ψ The Ryder Cup of 2001 was postponed to 2002 due to the 9/11 attack. The 2002 US team was formed by the same

players who qualified for the Ryder Cup 2011. An implication of this change is that from the Ryder 2002 on, the

qualifying period for the Ryder Cupn starts right after the Ryder Cupn-1 finishes (i.e., the regular PGA Tour tournaments

that were held after the Ryder of 2002 were included for in the qualifying period for the Ryder 2004).

† If a player who was ineligible (e.g., he is not American) finished in one of these positions, the Ryder cup awards no


‡If two players finish tied (e.g., 3rd position), the Ryder Cup sums the 3rd and 4th position’s points and divide them by

two to find out their respective points. The player who finished 4th in the ranking of the tournament will be 5th in the




Ryder Cup 2004 – US Team Qualifying Points System Ψ †‡

Finishing Position


2002 2003 2004 2002 2003 2004

1st 37,5 75 150 150 225 300

2nd 22,5 45 90 90 135 180

3rd 20 40 80 80 120 160

4th 17,5 35 70 70 105 140

5th 15 30 60 60 90 120

6th 12,5 25 50 50 75 100

7th 10 20 40 40 60 80

8th 7,5 15 30 30 45 60

9th 5 10 20 20 30 40

10th 2,5 5 10 10 15 20

41

† If a player who was ineligible (e.g., he is not American) finishes in one of these positions, the Ryder cup awards no


‡If two players finish tied (e.g., 3rd position), the Ryder Cup sums the 3rd and 4th position’s points and divide them by

two to find out their respective points. The player who finishes 4th in the ranking of the tournament will be 5th in the




- All U.S. players who finished in the top 10 in all official events after the PGA Championship

(non-included) in 2006 were awarded ¼ a point for every $1,000 earned.

- Prize money earned in the 2007 major championships (Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and

PGA Championship) – 1 point for every $1,000 earned.

- Prize money earned in “official events” in 2008 from Jan. 1 until the PGA Championship

(excluded) - 1 point for every $1,000 earned, excluding the major championships (Masters, U.S.

Open, British Open and PGA Championship) and events played opposite major championships

(US Bank Championship) and opposite World Golf Championships (Mayakoba Golf Classic;

Puerto Rico Open; Legends Reno).


33-PGA Championship) - 2 points for every $1,000 earned.

Ryder Cup 2006 – US Team Qualifying Points System †‡

Finishing Position


2004 2005 2006 2005 2006

1st 37,5 75 375 450 675

2nd 22,5 45 180 225 360

3rd 20 40 160 200 320

4th 17,5 35 140 175 280

5th 15 30 120 150 240

6th 12,5 25 100 125 200

7th 10 20 80 100 160

8th 7,5 15 60 75 120

9th 5 10 20 50 80

10th 2,5 5 20 25 40

Ryder Cup 2008 – US Team Qualifying Points System

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- Prize money earned in 2008 events played opposite the major championships (US Bank

Championship) and opposite World Golf Championship events (Mayakoba Golf Classic; Puerto

Rico Open; Legends Reno) between Jan. 1 and Aug. 11 - ½ a point for every $1,000 earned.


(non-included) in 2008 were awarded ¼ a point for every $1,000 earned.



- Prize money earned in “official events” in 2010 from Jan. 1 until the PGA Championship

(excluded) - 1 point for every $1,000 earned, excluding the major championships (Masters, U.S.

Open, British Open and PGA Championship) and events played opposite major championships

(Legends Reno) and opposite World Golf Championships (Mayakoba Golf Classic; Puerto Rico

Open; Turning Stone Resort Championship).


PGA Championship) - 2 points for every $1,000 earned).

- Prize money earned in 2010 events played opposite the major championships (Legends Reno)

and opposite World Golf Championship events (Mayakoba Golf Classic; Puerto Rico Open;

Turning Stone Resort Championship) between Jan. 1 and Aug. 11 - ½ a point for every $1,000

earned.


(non-included) in 2010 were be awarded ¼ a point for every $1,000 earned.



- Prize money earned in “official events” in 2012 from Jan. 1 through Aug. 12 - 1 point for every

$1,000 earned, excluding the major championships (Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA

Championship) and events played opposite major championships (True South Classic) and

opposite World Golf Championships (Reno Tahoe Open; Mayakoba Golf Classic; Puerto Rico

Open).


PGA Championship) - 2 points for every $1,000 earned.



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- Prize money earned in 2012 events played opposite the major championships (True South

Classic) and opposite World Golf Championship events (Reno Tahoe Open, Mayakoba Golf

Classic and Puerto Rico Open) between Jan. 1 and Aug. 12 – ½ a point for every $1,000 earned.

The Burden of Glory: Non-monetary Incentives in Rank-order...

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