Pine Valley Golf Club Opens Doors to Bond Trader Who Played in U.S. Open
Michael Barbosa
Michael Cohen/USGA via Bloomberg
Michael Barbosa, a mortgage bond trader at Peraza Capital and an elite golf amateur, watches his shot off the eighth tee during the practice round at the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland, on June 15, 2011.
Michael Barbosa, a mortgage bond trader at Peraza Capital and an elite golf amateur, watches his shot off the eighth tee during the practice round at the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland, on June 15, 2011. Photographer: Michael Cohen/USGA via Bloomberg
Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Michael Barbosa, a mortgage bond trader at Peraza Capital, talks with Bloomberg's Erik Matuszewski about competing in the 87th Crump Cup and playing along side Tom Nolan, the senior vice president of golf and tennis at Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. Barbosa, 28, is among 120 amateurs beginning competition today at the tournament at the Pine Valley Golf Club in Clementon, New Jersey. (Source: Bloomberg)
Michael Barbosa
Steve Gibbons/USGA via Bloomberg
Michael Barbosa, a mortgage bond trader at Peraza Capital and an elite golf amateur, hits his tee shot on the 1st hole during the first round at the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland on June 16, 2011.
Michael Barbosa, a mortgage bond trader at Peraza Capital and an elite golf amateur, hits his tee shot on the 1st hole during the first round at the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland on June 16, 2011. Photographer: Steve Gibbons/USGA via Bloomberg
Michael Barbosa competed in the U.S. Open in June and will play in a tournament at Pine Valley Golf Club, the top-ranked course in the world, this weekend. In between, he’s been trading mortgage bonds for Peraza Capital.
Barbosa, 28, is among 120 amateurs beginning competition today at the 87th Crump Cup, a match-play event held at the private club in Clementon, New Jersey. Pine Valley is ranked as the best course in the world by Golf Magazine, has Hall of Fame golfer Jack Nicklaus, former president George H.W. Bush and Sandler O’Neill & Partners LP senior managing principal James Dunne among its members.
Barbosa, who has spent the past year as a sales trader specializing in mortgage-backed securities at Peraza, of St. Petersburg, Florida, said the sport is helping his career in finance.
“You have a chance to be around a lot of successful guys and see what they’re doing,” Barbosa said in a telephone interview. “It’s a good opportunity for someone who’s 28 years old and just making their way in the world.”
A Georgia Tech graduate, Barbosa started working at Peraza while completing his law degree at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. He passed the bar exam in August, got married in March and has since played a series of golf tournaments, including the Southern Amateur near Tampa, Florida, the Baltusrol Invitational in Springfield, New Jersey, and the U.S. Amateur Championship at Erin Hills in Wisconsin last month.
Barbosa missed the cut for weekend play against the pros at the U.S. Open, where he finished 24-over par for two rounds, 40 strokes behind winner Rory McIlroy at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland.
‘Phenomenal’
He said he’s eager for a second chance at Pine Valley, where he lost in the quarterfinals of the 2010 Crump Cup. The tournament features amateurs over the age of 25 and is named after the course’s founder, Philadelphia hotelier George Crump.
The final matches are scheduled for Oct. 2, the only day of the year the club is open for public viewing of a course secluded amid 623 acres of scrub pines in southern New Jersey that’s rated among the most difficult in the world.
Trip Kuehne, who finished second to Tiger Woods in the 1994 U.S. Amateur championship, has participated in the Crump Cup and said the golf course is what makes the tournament so special.
“To walk in the locker rooms there for all the industrial titans and famous golfers, and see your name forever etched at Pine Valley really means something,” said Kuehne, 39, who runs the hedge fund firm Double Eagle Capital Management in Irving, Texas. “It’s a phenomenal place.”
Camaraderie
The participants stay in cabins and houses on-site, which is part of the event’s camaraderie, Barbosa said. Among his fellow competitors this year is Tom Nolan, the senior vice president of golf and tennis at Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. The two struck up a friendship at previous events and Nolan was Barbosa’s caddie at the U.S. Open.
“Regardless of how busy our lives are or how little we play, guys, when they get an invitation to the Crump Cup, they block those days,” Barbosa said. “If you’re going to play one event during the year, you want it to be the Crump Cup.”
While Barbosa admits he’s been frustrated with the state of his game since the summer, he said he realizes how lucky he is. He has the opportunity to get out of the office and compete on some of the world’s best courses, as well as teeing it up with McIlroy, Phil Mickelson, Luke Donald and other top professionals at the U.S. Open -- golf’s second major championship -- three months ago.
“Part of it is if you have an accomplishment, your expectations go up,” Barbosa said. “And golf is a funny game - - it seems when your expectations go up, your quality of play goes down. But I have nothing to complain about. I’ve gotten to do things that I’d only dreamed about in the past six or eight months. So it’s been a great year.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Matuszewski in New York at matuszewski@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Sillup at msillup@bloomberg.net
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