Meaningful Returns

The 2016 U.S. Open Golf Championship is being played this week outside of Pittsburgh at the storied Oakmont Country Club.

Over time the U.S. Open has become the most difficult golf tournament in the world. Given this country’s obsession with superlatives, this is perhaps unsurprising. And there are many people who love the U.S. Open for no other reason than that it humbles professional golfers.

You know, often when we think about “keeping up with the Joneses” we think of coveting and buying bigger and better and newer things–things that the Joneses already have. But there is another side to the story, and it goes something like this: If I can’t have it, I sure as hell don’t want the JONESES to have it.

We start rooting for the Joneses to lose, to be humbled, to stand there in 12 inches of rough with no shot at the hole.