“When $20 was like $400”: Michael Jordan’s Competitive Putt-Putt Gambling Led to Bulls Ticket Director Getting Yelled at By His Wife

Michael Jordan’s love for golf, and gambling, has always been well-known by fans. However, what eventually turned into a huge addiction that led to him gambling away thousands of dollars, appears to have begun on a smaller scale. When the eventual GOAT was first drafted by the Chicago Bulls in 1984, he would often play competitive Putt-Putt with the Bulls Ticket Director, Joe O’Neil.

As it turned out, while MJ was still figuring out the ropes at the Bulls, he would often show up at the Bulls office to play at a miniature golf course he set up with O’Neil, according to Roland Lazenby’s Michael Jordan: The Life. O’Neil revealed that Jordan’s competitive spirit was on obvious display even when he played miniature golf. 

“We’d play putt-putt,” Joe O’Neil recalled. “We’d put together a little eighteen-hole golf course in the office and we’d bet. We’d walk around the office putting golf balls into waste cans, and that son of a gun, he was as competitive playing putt-putt in the office as he was on the court,” he said. 

While Jordan was obviously earning enough already to afford the $20 bets that would go around, O’Neil would get into trouble with his wife.

“He’d take twenty dollars from me, and that’s when twenty dollars was like four hundred dollars. I still remember giving him twenty dollars in the office and my wife yelling at me for gambling with him,” he said.

Hence, while MJ’s competitive spirit eventually earned the Bulls six titles in eight seasons, it initially resulted in frustration for O’Neil. He claimed that they had set up an 18-hole course that featured a variety of trashcans.

It is, therefore, easy to conclude that Jordan simply had too much free time during the first few months of his Bulls career. The player was still figuring out how he could spend his free time and chose to torment the ticketing director at least initially.

Michael Jordan could simply not help his ‘competitive spirit’

While MJ caused innumerable people utter issues due to his competitive spirit, it seems as if this was a characteristic he himself was not fond of. Back in 2013, Jordan had revealed that his competitiveness was essentially an addiction. 

 “I can’t help myself. It’s an addiction. You ask for this special power to achieve these heights, and now you got it and you want to give it back, but you can’t. If I could, then I could breathe,” he said.

Therefore, on one hand, Jordan’s competitiveness led to what is regarded as one of the greatest ever NBA careers. On the other, it stopped him from breathing easily, even if he suggested he always wanted this ‘special power’ to achieve the heights he had dreamed of, as a kid.