The billionaire is retiring and closing his firm, Duquesne Capital. The fund returned returned 11 percent in 2008 and 10 percent in 2009 but apparently Stan can’t take the “interim drawdowns” (they’re down 5 percent so far this year) anymore. Also, he just wants to golf.

“While the joy of winning for clients is immense, for me the disappointment of each interim drawdown over the years has taken a cumulative toll that I cannot continue to sustain,” he wrote to his 100 clients today. “I felt I missed a lot of opportunities in 2008 and 2009, and a huge move in bonds this year,” he said. In the past three years, his returns have trailed those of the 10 portfolio managers who manage about half of Duquesne’s capital — a first.

Druckenmiller said he’s been thinking about retiring since he left Soros Fund Management LLC 10 years ago. He became serious about the idea three or four weeks ago, when Johann Rupert, a friend and chief executive officer of Cie. Financiere Richemont SA, the world’s largest jewelry maker, invited him to play in October at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland, a golf tournament in which both professionals and amateurs compete. Druckenmiller declined, saying he couldn’t leave the office, given the history of volatile markets in October. “Are you crazy?” was Rupert’s reply, according to Druckenmiller. “You’ve been doing this for 30 years. You are a billionaire. You can’t take a couple of days off to play golf?” “I’d had that same thought a hundred times,” Druckenmiller said. He said almost every family vacation had been interrupted by a work emergency.

Druckenmiller Calling It Quits [Bloomberg]