The Invitational is decided on the course. But it begins the night before, in a room with a barbecue, a bar, and an auctioneer — at the Calcutta, where the entire field is bought and sold before a single ball is struck.
One by one, every team is put up for auction, and those gathered bid for the right to own them for the weekend. The money goes into a pool. When the dust settles on the eighteenth the following evening, the pool is paid out to the people who owned the teams that finished on top — with a share, by long tradition, reserved so the owners may buy back a piece of their own team if they fancy their chances.
You learn more about a player from how he is bid on than from his handicap.
The Calcutta is the oldest theater in the game. A quiet pair nobody rates goes for a song, plays out of their minds, and makes a fortune for the one person who believed. A glamour team gets bid into the sky and shoots eighty in the wind. The room reads the field, the field hears what the room thinks of it, and everyone walks to the first tee the next morning knowing exactly what they are worth in the eyes of their peers. It is barbecue, it is bourbon, and it is the truest fun we host all year.
