How different is tournament golf? These are the 7 mistakes I made

May 22, 2026 · Yahoo Sports

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Ben Hogan famously said, “Golf and tournament golf are about as different as tennis and ice hockey.” And after playing in a recent tournament, I can confirm he was onto something.

Having never played competitive golf on any official level, I’m still a novice at tournament golf. Sure, I have my annual buddies trips, which bring out more nerves than I’d like to admit, but as I found out at a recent Metropolitan Golf Association Public Links qualifier that also doubled as the Westchester Golf Association Publinks Championship, this is a whole other level.

In the days since I posted a humbling 85 at Hudson Hills Golf Course, I’ve continually flip-flopped over whether to call the experiment a success or failure. I did finish right in the middle of the pack (T-26 of the 54 players who teed it up) on a day of high scores while battling to par six of my last eight holes. But I also shot what had to be my worst opening nine in decades and lamented that it only would have taken a 78—a score I’ve bettered there many times—to advance.

What I am sure of, however, is that I made a lot of avoidable mistakes. So I’m going to try to avoid doing these seven things the next time I try playing tournament golf—and I suggest you do as well.

I should have brought a pushcart or caddie

A few days before the tournament, I received an email with tournament info and pairings, which was really cool. That email also notified competitors that this would be a WALKING ONLY event. As someone who likes to walk and carry my bag for a good amount of my rounds, I planned to do that, but this is one of the courses where I’ve never done that.

The place is called Hudson HILLS, after all. And in all the years I’ve played there, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone walking. So what were my other options? Either procure a pushcart somehow (I don’t think that would have made that much difference with some of the inclines you’d have to push that thing) or procure a caddie for a course that doesn’t provide caddies.

Neither were simple options, but I ended up jealous of the people in the field who did one or the other—especially on a day when the temperatures rose into the 90s. No excuses, but that was an absolute slog.

I shouldn't have skimped on sleep

Look, Game 1 of the NBA Western Conference Finals between the Spurs and Thunder was an instant classic, but I probably shouldn't have stayed up for the double-overtime thriller. Just ask my Oura:

You don't want to be "Mr. 58" when it comes to sleep. Sam Weinman has written about how wearable devices don’t have to dictate our performance, but it wouldn’t have hurt to arrive at the course fresher. Again, no excuses, but I was running on empty those last few holes, so I would advise you to do everything in your power to get a good night’s rest before teeing it up in a tournament.

I should have played a practice round

As mentioned, I’ve played Hudson Hills too many times to remember, but I’ve never played the course from the back tees, which made the course feel a lot different. Of course, so did walking up to that first tee and being greeted by tournament administrators and a proper setup that even featured a clock that Garrick Higgo could have used at last week’s PGA Championship:

Also, my only time playing there this year had come more than a month before, when the conditions were a lot different. The greens were rolling much fasterm and the rough—especially in certain places—was much, much thicker. As I learned from playing with Quaker Ridge head pro Mario Guerra as he played a practice round at another course a few weeks back, the more info at your disposal, the better.

I shouldn’t have changed my first-tee plan

However, sometimes familiarity can hurt you. As I discussed with Guerra, I actually felt more nervous playing at a course I knew well—and knew had so many trouble spots. “That’s because you’ve got scar tissue from finding those spots before,” he explained.

But with a chance to avoid one of those trouble spots—missing right on No. 1 and being blocked out by trees for my approach—I blew it. After deciding I’d hit 5-wood instead of driver the day before, I changed my mind when I got to the first tee and we were into the wind. I was also influenced by the fact that both my playing partners, Mike and Peter (who were a pleasure to play with), chose driver as well.

As I stood over the ball, hands shaking, I thought to myself about how I was going to do anything other than hit it right. What did I do instead? Hit a dead pull left and out of play unlike any shot I’ve ever hit there. I re-teed and then hit my normal right tee shot and made my normal bogey with my second ball for an opening triple. Fun!

”It’s understandable that you would be so nervous because the contrast between the feeling you normally get when you go to this course in a very casual setting, not feeling the pressure, and then all of a sudden there's a tent, and there's pressure and there's importance and then a real outcome that you want and consequences for if you don't get it,” golf psychology coach Josh Nichols says. “All these things add up to nerves.”

I should have practiced more short putts

My normal group is pretty fair when it comes to gimmes. I don’t think we’re too egregious with scooping up putts, but, admittedly, we also don’t fully play ball-in-hole golf. Other than that opening tee shot, I felt most nervous over putts inside two feet. Even tap-ins. Medal play just hits different.

I also felt awkward with them because you have to be careful about stepping on someone else’s line. So for the most part, I’d mark and wait to putt out. And, despite the nerves, I converted them all. Except for one. And that came when I lost focus at the end of that disastrous front nine, walked up to one, didn’t take my time, and lipped it out. Which leads me to my next mistake . . .

I shouldn’t have let my guard down

I certainly lost focus on that short missed putt, but the main mistake happened on the tee box. For days, I’d been dreading playing the seventh and eighth holes, which are both littered with landmines. If something can go wrong on those two holes, it will.

On No. 7, a par-5 where you’re forced to lay up with something less than driver before having to carry an environmentally protected area on your second shot, I made bogey while my playing partners made double and triple. On No. 8, our threesome hit SEVEN tee shots and no one made better than double. One guy made an all-time up-and-down from a hazard behind the green . . . for a quad!

I’m telling you all of this because it was actually moments later on the short, par-3 ninth, that I actually hit my worst shot of the day, a bladed 9-iron that just ran through the long green and lodged between two rocks in a hazard. Not wanting to damage a club, I took a drop, hit a poor pitch, missed the bogey putt and then missed the aforementioned short comebacker for a hideous triple bogey.

”A tournament shows you like nothing else the intensity of needing to remain focused at the same level,” Nichols says. “My coach always said, 'Give every shot the same low level of importance for an entire round.' Your every shot requires that same low level, which for you, that means on the really hard gauntlet holes is lowering the relative level of importance. And then on the seemingly easy ones is raising the level of importance. So finding a better equilibrium is a learned skill.”

I should have approached the experience differently

I knew going in that playing a real tournament would feel different, but I was wrong in thinking I could talk myself out of those nerves. I tried telling myself I was excited for the opportunity. I tried telling myself to enjoy the experience and not worry about the result. I tried convincing myself that this was just like any other round. None of it worked.

”Where something can go wrong is when you have an expectation for how you want to feel and no matter what you do it's just not happening,” Nichols says. “And then you're going to be self-critical of how you feel and you're not going to be very accepting of, OK, I’m anxious and this is not as fun as I would hope it is. You know what? That’s OK. I'm not playing this necessarily for the fun of it, I'm playing this for some alternate purpose. And that's OK.”

As I’ve written about, that alternate purpose is to feel more comfortable shooting lower scores in my normal, casual rounds, part of my preseason plan with Guerra. And when I shot 10 shots lower the next day at a different course to help a Golf Digest foursome win a member-guest, it certainly seemed like that plan is already working.

My ultimate goal isn’t to become a better tournament golfer, just a better golfer. But playing more tournament golf can help me get there. Plus, it was cool feeling like a real golfer at points—like when we went over our scorecards at the end before signing them—even if there were a lot of anxiety-filled moments throughout the day.

“The fact that you know you're going to feel that way ahead of time is an extremely valuable data point, and now you have that,” Nichols tells me. “So you've kind of chopped the anxiety in half. Because now there's less uncertainty of how it might go. Now there's still the anxiety of performing, but also you've experienced that before.”

Nichols, a former standout at Appalachian State, says he still feels out of his element when he plays in tournaments. And this is a guy who made it all the way to the championship match of the 2017 U.S. Mid-Am Championship.

“There’s no way to simulate the pressure of tournament golf,” he says.

Just like there’s no way to compare those 78s that qualified to my usual scores there. It’s apples to oranges. Or tennis and ice hockey. And, hopefully, more tournament reps I get, the less foreign it will feel.

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