Personal Performance - O'Neal Goes Golfing As The Ship Goes Down

The sub-prime mess continues to expand and move the market with everything from today's rate cut and dow drop to the President's bail out plan for home owners. What is interesting is how rarely you get a look into the inner workings of the institution as the tidal wave mounts. In the case of Stan O'Neal and Merril Lynch, it appears as the crisis mounted, he was golfing.

I ran across this article from famed author Michael Lewis (Moneyball, The New New Thing) in Financial Week that gives precious insight into O'Neal's last days at the helm. Between August 12 and September 30th O'Neal played 20 rounds at 4 different courses. You can look it up on the USGA website. While ML was busy losing $8.4B, O'Neal's handicap improved slightly from 10.2 to 9.1. With his expected $160M buy-out, it is a good bet his handicap goes even lower.

The article with commentary from Lewis inside the mind and out on the course is worth the read. I guess personal performance when the chips are down really counts.