
Why Golfers Buy Hole In One Insurance - nthitz
http://priceonomics.com/why-golfers-buy-hole-in-one-insurance/
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djloche
The article doesn't cover it - but the reason why people are expected to buy
everyone drinks is because if you're lucky and skilled enough to get a hole in
one, you will likely win the round and all the money wagered. If it is a local
club or casual tournament, this can be a few hundred or thousand dollars. Even
if it is just four people playing, there will usually be money wagered between
themselves.

If it's a larger event, the purse for winning easily covers the hole-in-one
celebrations. On top of this, if you are a member of a local country club -
you're already paying hundreds if not thousands a month on membership dues.
You're expected to have such wealth that to cover drinks/food isn't a big
deal. Some clubs are structured such that you aren't directly paying for the
celebrations, but your membership dues are such that it includes the cost of
any potential celebrations.

Golfing is a game for the wealthy, including the traditions surrounding it.

~~~
URSpider94
I disagree -- I don't think that a hole-in-one correlates with winning the
round (I'd be interested if someone can crunch the stats for the PGA), and I
also don't think that goes any further to explaining the reasoning.

I think the article DOES hint at explaining it anthropologically -- there's a
rich tradition of "potlatch" events in which community members demonstrate
their power by how much they can give away. Ultimately, you've just
experienced some incredible good luck, and that gets spread around by handing
out free drinks. Also, if you hang out at the club long enough, you'll be the
recipient of many hole-in-one free drinks, which will ultimately balance out
the round you had to buy.

~~~
notahacker
Agree. A hole in one is usually achieved on a par three green which requires
no real skill to hit (but plenty of skill to rarely miss) and subtracts no
more than two from your overall round which is not a huge advantage in a
tournament with players of mixed abilities. In a tournament the pin might well
be placed in an awkward part of the green intended to deter golfers from
intentionally aiming directly at it, leaving the more accurate and strategic
golfers most likely to win the tournament actually _less_ likely to score a
hole in one. If anything, a hole-in-one represents the opportunity for people
without any chance of ever achieving the consistency to win a golf tournament
to earn bragging rights.

Anecdata: As one of the most erratic, temperamental and limited golfers ever
in my teens, I once nailed an approach shot from 150 yards straight into the
hole on the second hole (arguably, given that I was playing my second shot
from heavy rough, a more difficult shot than a hole-in-one on a regular par
three). In the same round I then managed to lose five balls in the process of
scoring seventeen on the 17th during the same round. To be fair, it was quite
a difficult 17th. Strangely, I haven't played much since.

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slyall
A lot of the comments here seem to assume that only the rich play golf. I'm
from a golfing family (don't play myself) and that is definitely not always
the case, at least in New Zealand. Sure you'd get doctors and lawyers playing
but the bulk of the club would be middle class people making well under the
equivalent $100k. Certainly not people who can afford to drop say $1000
casually.

For instance my local club (
[http://www.akaranagolf.co.nz/akarana_join.php](http://www.akaranagolf.co.nz/akarana_join.php)
in the middle of Auckland ) charges $1875/year ( $NZ but close enough to $US)
for a full member while the club I used to play at (
[http://taierigolf.co.nz/?page_id=49#membership](http://taierigolf.co.nz/?page_id=49#membership)
a bit out of a smaller city ) charges $650/year. You could play all year for
just that amount.

I just asked my relatives what the rule is at their club (which is fairly
nice/expensive as clubs go) and they said "In the old days the club would
shout the bar, at our club new the club pays $150 and you pay the rest. So
normally people wait till few have left before buying". So just a single round
of drinks. I've found similar bits in the rules of other clubs

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sokoloff
Am I to understand that someone who is golfing is unable to absorb the costs
of several hundred dollars of drinks in?

And that this is common enough that there's an insurance product to hedge that
miniscule risk?

It seems like a much shorter article could have been written: Because they
can't do math.

~~~
67726e
Perhaps for the American case of buying a few dozen martinis, but what about
the anecdote of a Japanese man taking 200 guests on a dinner cruise? With a
premium of $3, per the article, that might not be a bad idea.

~~~
notahacker
The article gives a "typical cost" of $3-5000 for a Japanese person keen to
show their generosity. It doesn't make it clear the policy will pay out
anywhere near that much (the British policy we are given a direct link to
covers a lot more than holes in one, but pays a maximum of £200 on alcohol
only for holes-in-one, at an overall premium cost of £49.95 _per annum_ )

Even if the $3 premium really is a one off fee which covers $3000 worth of
celebratory cruises (both of which I doubt), an amateur golfer with a 1 in
12,500 chance of getting a hole in one and enough disposable income to join
the sort of golf club that expects celebratory cruises probably shouldn't
bother.

~~~
67726e
My understanding of the article, in the Japanese case, is not that the club
requires or expects this sort of thing. This is a cruise for the "lucky"
golfers friends and family and is more a societal expectation for whatever
reason.

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segacontroller
I have been around professional golf my whole life and have seen many hole in
ones. No one ever purchased me a drink. I have made a few hole in ones, and no
one has ever even asked me to buy them one.

I have heard of this "tradition", but after travelling week to week with the
PGA tour for years and playing golf with a multitude of new people every week,
and have never even heard of someone buying more than three drinks for their
playing partners.

~~~
baha_man
Well, perhaps a hole in one is a bigger deal for amateurs, so they are more
likely to honour the tradition. The article give the odds of getting a hole in
one as 7,500 to 1 for a pro and 12,500 for an amateur, which doesn't seem like
a huge difference, but presumably pros will play so much more they'll get many
more holes in one.

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herge
I worked in reinsurance, and there was the (apocryphal) story one year of how
the government of South Africa had promised a million dollars to every player
if their team won the world cup. On the flip side, the government looked for a
reinsurer to insure them for that risk. My company said no because so
basically it distilled down to sports betting and we did not have any
experience in that market.

~~~
Someone
It is (or was?) also fairly normal for British snooker and darts players to
place an 'insurance bet', by betting on themselves losing a game
([http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/144899/Steve-
Dav...](http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/144899/Steve-Davis-
Snooker-stars-bet-on-themselves-to-lose))

Say that the difference between winning and losing a final is £50k, and the
bookmakers pay out even on a bet that you lose. If you bet £20k on you losing,
you change a "nothing if I lose, £50k if I win" game into a "£20k if I lose,
£30k if I win" game.

Some players prefer such a game. Placing that bet might even increase their
chance of winning, as part of the stress gets removed from the game (you're
playing for £10k, not for £50k)

~~~
mseebach
You're usually not allowed to bat on yourself for fairly obvious reasons.

On a related note, a friend who's a sports better always placed the biggest
bets against his own teams. Partly because he trusts his judgement better when
not clouded by the hope that his team will win, partly because if he looses
the bet, hey, his favorite team just won the game against the odds!

~~~
baha_man
Surely betting on yourself to _win_ is fine?

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snake_plissken
Whattt? Golfers who get a hole in one are expected to buy everyone drinks? I
caddied during the summer months in high-school and college. Whenever someone
got a hole in one there would be a 2-4 hour open bar after that round came in,
for all of the members and their guests who happen to show up at the bar
during that time. This is not the tradition around the world?!

~~~
phpnode
sure, it's just that the open bar is funded by the "lucky" player

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mxfh
This looks more like a gimmick to cash in on overconfident people, who want to
have some extra bragging rights on the course, than an insurance. Who gets
insured for something that costs you $650 at max and is totally avoidable?

~~~
Sanddancer
$3/mo is a flat, fixed fee that can be budgeted against. $650 out of the blue
is a lot like having a car break down, and is enough to put a crimp in any
other plans one may have coming up. If someone really enjoys golf, it seems
like a reasonable thing to do.

~~~
jonknee
Except instead of your car breaking down it's like $650 out of the blue to
wash all your neighbor's cars out of the kindness of your own heart. It's a
completely avoidable cost (no insurance needed, just don't buy people drinks
if you don't want to).

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awalton
First World Problems: The Article.

There was just someone ranting on Twitter yesterday about Bill O'Reilly's
ranting of how few millennials actually play golf - "Why Is The Generation We
Sunk Into Crushing Unemployment and Debt Not Playing Our Shitty, Classist
Sport?"

~~~
Balgair
Link?

~~~
awalton
[https://twitter.com/Papapishu/status/492401740029775872](https://twitter.com/Papapishu/status/492401740029775872)

~~~
Balgair
Thank you

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timle
I think the key here is that the hole in one insurance is 'frequently bundled
with other services'. It's something that basically costs nothing for the
insurance companies to provide, but could act as a selling point for the right
customer.

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moron4hire
I mean, it's not pick-up basketball, but golf doesn't have to be an expensive
sport. My first set of clubs were used, maybe $50. I'm not so sure, because it
was 20 years ago and my father bought them for me. We were not rich by any
means. We would play once a week together.

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NoahTheDuke
What happens when someone gets a hole-in-one and then doesn't buy anyone
anything? Are they kicked out? Are they shunned? Seems like an easy solution:
don't do things for people when you get a hole-in-one.

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eddievb
I totally thought this was going to try and make a broader analogy. But no,
just a golf article. Hm.

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jeffsco
The premise seems false. The insurance is against the cost, as is usual.

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alayne
#firstworldproblems

