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On the final green of virtually every PGA Tour event, a golfer will stand over a routine short putt worth between $200,000 and $500,000. It might take one second for the ball to roll toward the hole, but if the result is a costly four-foot miss, it usually takes another minute for the enormity of the loss to sink in.
When their rounds are complete, golfers enter the privacy of a nearby scoring tent, which one player called “the loony bin.” It is there that players come face-to-face with the tournament’s prize money chart delineating the payouts for finishing first, second, third, and so on.