Tournament golf and social golf may be played with the same clubs, but they can feel like entirely different games. Dan Camilli takes a thoughtful and humorous look at what pressure reveals on the course.
“There is golf — and there is tournament golf. And they are not, at all, alike.”
— Bobby Jones
When Tournament Season Arrives
The end of March marks the blessed conclusion of the two-month tournament season in our senior golf league. And win or lose, I always look forward to the concluding awards luncheon with a sense of great relief.
Our annual 60-day experience with tournament golf provides more than enough evidence to support Bobby Jones’s observation about tournament golf being an entirely different game.
One always knows that Tournament Season is approaching by observing the number of members who are sandbagging their GHIN handicaps; conveniently forgetting to post their scores for weeks at a time, or perhaps not posting their better rounds in preparation for the arduous two-month ordeal.
In any event, there’s an annual epidemic of “Truth Decay” sweeping through the senior men’s golf league.
As the Scots say, “If there’s a bit of scoundrel in a man, golf will bring it out of him.”
When Friendly Golf Turns Competitive
Otherwise normal, affable, congenial golfers seem to suddenly transform into merciless predators, seeking every advantage over their years-long playing partners and fellow members. The shift in energy is tangible.
While singles medal play (stroke play) is a fairly innocuous experience, since you simply post your score from your regular round played with your usual partners, it’s really the two-man match play event that brings out the less-than-better angels of our nature.
It all begins as you and your team partner, who together have already survived running a grueling three-week qualifying gauntlet, approach the first tee box and greet your opponents for the day.
Spain’s legendary Hall of Famer, Seve Ballesteros, best described that first tee energy:
“I look into their eyes, shake their hands, pat their back and wish them luck, but I am thinking ‘I am going to bury you’.”
— Seve Ballesteros
Even when playing against guys you’ve played with for years and shared laughs with in the clubhouse, it’s different this day. There’s a distinct lack of the usual mutual commiseration that comes from the shared suffering of playing this difficult game.
The very definition of compassion is “shared suffering,” and there’s little compassion to be found on tournament day. The Buddha said that “it all begins with compassion,” but compassion goes on holiday during tournament season.
The Difference Between Tournament Golf and Social Golf
There’s something about tournament golf that brings out the predatory traits in many people.
As Russian philosopher Peter Kropotkin put it, “Competition is the law of the jungle. But cooperation is the law of civilization.”
That warm, welcoming sense of empathy at the core of social golf is entirely absent on this day.
“Golf puts a man’s character on the anvil and his richest qualities — patience, poise, restraint — to the flame.”
— Billy Casper
Tournament golf emphasizes the predatory, while social golf is based more upon the compassion forged from the shared suffering of fellow golfers.
It can be best described through the African philosophy of Ubuntu, meaning “humanity to others,” best understood through the concept of “I am because we are.” This is the basis of the African saying that “it takes a village to raise a child.” It also can be understood as “a person is a person through other people.”
The primary focus is on compassionate community and its transformational power.
Social golf with friends is like warming our hands with the flame of compassionate empathy. Tournament golf is turning that flame against your opponent.
Pressure Changes Everything
The primary difference between tournament and social golf is the presence and intensity of pressure, and the subsequent fear it creates in the player.
As Sam Snead said, “Of all the hazards, fear is the worst.”
When Bobby Jones said that “competitive golf is played on a six-inch course between your ears,” he was referring to pressure management and playing through fear.
Performing under pressure is itself a unique and essential skill for the tournament player. Even tour pros need to learn how to manage pressure in order to close the deal on Sunday afternoons.
Scottish golfer, Bob MacIntyre demonstrated the tour pro’s skill at pressure management during the finale of the 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont when he turned to his caddie and said, “Mate, I can hardly feel my hands,” then proceeded to play his best three holes of the tournament.
Indeed, pressure management is as important as putting or wedge play, perhaps more so.
Exposure to pressure, especially for the amateur, can transform the joy of golf into a “vomiting on your shoes” experience as you peg up your opening tee shot of tournament play.
Pressure affects golfers in different ways. Much like alcohol, there are nice drunks and mean drunks. Pressure can most certainly bring out the worst in people.
When the Stakes Are Low, But Feel High
Like the time my partner and I were minutes late for a tournament tee time because the starter failed to call us from the practice green.
Our opponents greeted us not with smiles and handshakes, but rather with enraged insistence that we had forfeited the first hole. An unseemly shouting match ensued.
While undoubtedly a textbook example of people caring so much because the stakes are so low, my partner and I ultimately prevailed and we proceeded without penalty. However, it certainly cast a pall upon the entire frosty match.
Then there was the time that I was delayed in returning to the clubhouse after a match. Upon arriving, I was informed by my partner that I’d missed all the excitement. He pointed under a table where two guys were scrapping with one another.
When the police arrived, they could barely hide their amusement to find that, rather than breaking up a barroom brawl, they had entered upon a roomful of septuagenarians staring at two old codgers clutching each other’s collars and rolling about on the floor.
The combatants both received well-deserved suspensions from both the league and the clubhouse, but that’s the kind of behavior pressure can produce.
What Tournament Golf Can Teach Us
However, I do believe that tournament golf has its value, not as pretense to competitive rage, but as a tool for self-improvement; for developing one’s character rather than one’s ego.
For as Roman philosopher Seneca said, “Excellence withers without an adversary.”
While I am of the opinion that it’s good to experience various forms of golf, tournament golf is a bit like Calabrian chili peppers — I like it, but a little goes a long way.
Returning to the Soul of the Game
At the conclusion of tournament season, my partner and I played a totally for-fun round of golf by ourselves during which we did not even pretend to keep score.
It was an opportunity to reintroduce ourselves to the pure joy of playing this wonderful game, and we repeated this practice a few times in order to wash out whatever competitive toxicity may remain in our systems.
Eventually, however, we tired of this level of carefree delight and returned to regular social golf.
As Shakespeare said, “If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work.”
So, it’s always with great joy that I bid a fond farewell to tournament season. I’m grateful for the experience, but even more grateful for its conclusion.
For tournament golf is played primarily from the ego, and social golf is played from the soul.
And essentially, I’m a soul man.
Dan Camilli is a contributing writer for Senior Golf Source and a retired teacher and professor of history, philosophy, and humanities. He is the author of Tee Ceremony: A Cosmic Duffer’s Companion to the Ancient Game of Golf. Visit Dan at DanCamilli.com.