A healthy way to deal with stress

business%20golf.jpgAccording to this Patrick McGeehan/NY Times article, Bear Stearns chief James E. Cayne had a healthy way to relieve stress during the recent crisis surrounding the demise of two Bear Stearns hedge funds:

The near-meltdown of a hedge fund managed by Bear Stearns does not appear to have interrupted the golfing habits of its chief executive, James E. Cayne.
In the summer, Mr. Cayne routinely hops a helicopter from Manhattan to the Hollywood Golf Club in Ocean Township, N.J., where his pilot has permission to land on the grounds. According to scores posted on an online golf database, he continued to do so through the weeks in June when his firm was struggling to keep one of its mortgage securities funds afloat.
On June 14, the day when Bear Stearns reported a 10 percent drop in its operating earnings for the second quarter, Mr. Cayne played a round and shot a 96, his scores on the online database, GHIN.com, indicate. The next day, a Friday, he played again.
On Thursday, June 21, as several big banks pressured Bear Stearns to increase the collateral on loans they had made to its sinking fund, Mr. Cayne was back on the course. That day, he shot a 98.
The next day, in the biggest rescue of a hedge fund in almost a decade, Bear Stearns pledged to put up $3.2 billion to bail out its fund. (It later said that $1.6 billion would suffice.) Then the remarkably consistent Mr. Cayne played golf, shooting a 97.
Elizabeth Ventura, a spokeswoman for the firm, explained that Mr. Cayne flies down after work on Thursdays and plays an evening round of golf. On Fridays, he plays a round and works from his New Jersey home, where he is in constant touch with the office, she said.

Cayne’s handicap index is 15.9, so his scores during that stressful time certainly ballooned a bit higher than normal. But think how bad this could have gotten for Bear Stearns if Cayne had not been able to get his golf therapy? ;^)

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