Accentuated Loss Aversion in PGA Tournaments: Does Company Matter? D. Dhayanithy 1 , Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode, KL, India and V. Singh 2 , Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India. Abstract Professional golfers are loss averse, expending more effort on par putts than on birdie putts, thereby having greater success with par putts. However it is unclear if this behavioral bias alters under competition with increase in number of competitors. Our study used PGA putting data along with shot, hole, round and event level information from 29 PGA tournaments played in 2013 (106,370 attempted putts – birdie, par and bogie) to test this contention. Our model explained over 50% variance in putting success by adding psychological variables, i.e., effect of competitive company, that is, effect of partner putting for birdie and number of players remaining. N-effect appears to have a negative effect on the difficult (psychologically) task of putting for birdie. Overall, the results support our hypothesis that the gain frame of birdie shows pronounced effect of competition field size (n-effect). The results imply that as tournaments increase in size/competition, player-groupings, and the variance in player’s performance due to the grouping characteristics will become crucial parameters for skill and performance evaluation in sports. It is recommended that inclusion of psychologically meaningful variables in sport analytics will improve model predictability. Keywords: Putting success, loss aversion, proximity to standard effect, n-effect, social comparison, ShotLink Golf is a mental game – the players operate under psychological factors such as the recently highlighted loss aversion in reference to the ‘par’ [1] and dynamics of risk taking by golfers [2]. This paper explores another crucial factor namely the competition - effort link suggesting that the effort which a player exerts is a function of the number and nature of competitors presents [3]. This social comparison is driven by player pairing and field size. As golf gains more popularity, and the tournaments increase in size, the effect of social comparisons on the efforts exerted and the resultant performance becomes a critical condition in player’s performance evaluation. In line with the expectations of prospect theory [4], professional golfers are loss averse: they do not exert equal effort across different greens. Instead they expend more effort on their par putts (loss frame) than they do on their birdie putts (gain frame). Due to greater efforts exerted on par putts than the birdie putts, ceteris paribus, putt accuracy is greater for par than for birdie putts ([1]). This birdie – par differential in effort is significant even after controlling for alternative explanations like learning, player abilities, green-specific effects and rank position in the field. These empirical findings demonstrate that behavioral biases are not limited to lab-based studies but they extend the sports (a ‘real market’) as well [5]. For example, professional golfers are highly skilled and experienced agents facing large stakes [6] [7] and high competition[8]. These factors such as skill, experience, chance and competition are generalizable to all most all the sports. However, in spite of the utility of including psychological/behavioral phenomenon such as loss aversion in performance evaluation, these constructs remain rarely utilized especially in the game of golf. In reference to the construct of social comparison, the situational factors such as proximity to a standard and the number of competitors impact social comparison and the resultant competitive behavior [3]. For instance, applying the social comparison perspective to golf, it can be expected that the playing partner provides a physically proximate performance standard. Performance in the previous rounds is an important determinant of playing pairings; the playing                                                              1 Assistant Professor, Strategic Management Area, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kozhikode, KL, India 2 Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, DL, India