Caveat: I am not a financial expert, nor do I play one at this website. I recognize that we are in uncharted waters today, so please do not take the following as advice.

        Before coronavirus, and with an eye on the apparent stability of their 401Ks and other equity-dependent investments, thousands of baby boomers were considering a move to golf communities in the South. But with the stock market pretty much in freefall, many may be giving up hope about the retirement lifestyle they had counted on.
        Perhaps they shouldn’t.
        As the 2001 drop after 9/11 and the 2008 recession taught us, markets come back, and sometimes quickly. In the first day of trading after the 9/11 catastrophe, the market sank by more than 7%. But a month later, the Dow and NASDAQ were back to pre-9/11 levels. It took longer to recover from the global financial crisis that reached its peak in 2008, but by 2013, stability had been restored and many high-quality homes in the southern U.S. had passed pre-recession levels.
        During both those major financial events, some folks nearing retirement panicked, sold their equities at steep losses and put their money in safe instruments – at annual interest rates lower than 2%. When markets rebounded by multiples of that 2%, those conservative investors were left behind. Even worse, for those with relocation aspirations, housing prices had risen by as much as 5% to 8% per year in the highest-quality communities; these investors found that the homes they might have purchased earlier were now well beyond their reach.
        Like everyone else, I do not like to lose money. Having begun my 8th decade, my wife and I need all the savings we can hold onto. I was still working in 2001 and counted on a paycheck to take care of my family’s sustenance. But as a retiree in 2008, I was on a fixed income, and the recession caused me a fair bit of agita. But call it laziness, brain freeze or dumb luck, I ignored the instinct to panic-sell the equities in my retirement fund. By 2012, I was feeling financially whole again.
        We are all in different circumstances that govern our decisions. But for those of us who have the resources and patience to weather storms, sometimes inaction is the best action.

        Most of us will not make it to Augusta National for this year’s Masters tournament, but many will certainly be glued to the television for most every stroke, or at least the after-round highlights. A daily ticket to attend each of the four rounds of the event can reach well into the hundreds of dollars, but there is a way to be fully invested for as little as $1 for the entire tournament – by selecting the six players from the field whom you think have the best chance of winning, or at least of making the cut.
        “Fantasy” betting sites such as Fanduel and Draft Kings now legally take bets on all golf tournaments, foreign and domestic, every week of the season. What started as a roundabout way to pay fantasy baseball and football players for daily wagers now extends to golf and other sports. Although you can wager up to a few hundred dollars, casual fans like me plunk down as little as $1 to pick a team and then settle in to see if your “horses” make it to the finish. It is akin to owning your own baseball team and trading your players for a new crop every weekend. (Full disclosure, I tend to lose interest in any but the major tournaments when two or more of my players fail to make the cut after round two.)
        You do not get to pick any six players, though. You have a budget, typically $50,000, for your entire team, and the betting site assigns values to each player such that you really only get to choose one or two Rory McIlroys or Justin Thomases for your team; you need to dig deep to find tour rookies or Monday qualifier types to round out your group. For this week’s Player’s Championship, I note that the favorite, McIlroy, is priced at $11,700. Pair him with Jon Rahm ($11,000) and you have spent nearly half your salary with four players to go. Good luck with Sepp Straka at $6,000.
        Payoffs depend on the amount you bet and the various types of wagers. Since I wager only every few weekends, I tend to choose the events in which I think I have the best chance to make more than I bet. This past weekend, for example, for the Bay Hill Invitational in Florida, I chose a $5 event with only 71 participants and a total payout to the top 15 of $300; other events can feature thousands of participants and, of course, they will pay a lot more to the top finishers and will typically pay deeper into the group of also-rans. The Bay Hill winner in my betting group was only going to make $60 but the chances were good you could at least get your money back if you chose wisely. (Note: Some make a living from this. I’m retired.)
        For a change, I did get my money back, and then some, pairing the eventual winner, Tyrell Hatton, with Sung Jae Im (3rd), always-in-the-money Colin Morikawa (T9th), Matthew Fitzpatrick (T9th), Talor Gooch (T13th) and Bubba Watson, my only big name choice, who missed the cut. 
        I can hear you saying, “Talor Gooch? How would he ever know to bet on Talor Gooch?” The answer is I have Sirius/XM radio in my car, I listen to the fantasy sports station, and every Wednesday they invite a golf betting expert on to discuss that weekend’s golf event and his picks, both the top-budget golfers as well as some deep sleepers. When I heard him say “Talor Gooch,” I figured few other players would take a flyer on the barely known Gooch. Other good sources for information and odds on all the tournament participants include the betting sites for William Hill, Bovada and others.
        Draft Kings and the other fantasy sites – they try not to refer to themselves as “betting sites, will sometimes kick in a few dollars for new subscribers. This could be a good week to consider plunking down a dollar or two and settling back to watch the Player’s Championship. But I am offering no advice on picks, except to predict you will have fun and you have to be able to afford the losses (which is why I never bet more than $5). As they say in the investment business, “Past performance is no guarantee of future performance.” My $27 of winnings this past weekend was a total surprise. Who knows what this weekend will bring.