Golf prompts Druckenmiller's retirement – but was he off his game?

Too much money can damage your investment ability, Stanley Druckenmiller discovered
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Stanley Druckenmiller
Stanley Druckenmiller. Photograph: Peter Morgan/Reuters

Golf ends a famous career. Stanley Druckenmiller, the hedge fund manager who made a mint with George Soros by betting against the pound in 1992, says he finally decided to retire after declining an invitation to play in Pro-Am golf tournament in Scotland in October. Markets have a habit of behaving wildly in that month, he reasoned.

"Are you crazy?" Johann Rupert, the wealthy luxury goods boss, told him. "You've been doing this for 30 years. You are a billionaire. You can't take a couple of days off to play golf?"

It's a believable tale. But the deeper reason for retirement, as Druckenmiller told his investors, was that the investment game becomes a lot harder when you have an enormous amount of money to manage. He cited the "clear impact on my ability to perform, as well as my state of being".

This is a fascinating phenomenon – having too much money hurts your investment ability. In Druckenmiller's case, the pressures became too great. In other cases, the pressures to succeed are too slight. Or, as Warren Buffett, observed a few years ago: "Investment managers often profit far more from piling up assets than from handling those assets well. So when one tells you that increased funds won't hurt his investment performance, step back: his nose is about to grow."

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