Let me be clear from the start: every professional golfer is deeply thankful for the sponsors and executives who fund the tournaments they play in. Without them, there is no tour. But I’m going to tell you a truth that no pro in their prime will ever admit on camera: they despise playing in the Wednesday Pro-Am.
Deep down, they wish they were anywhere else but on the course, shaking hands the day before a competition.
The Biggest Complaints
The biggest complaint is the brutal pace of play. A pro in a practice round with other pros takes a shot approximately every four minutes. Their entire pre-shot routine and internal clock are built around this rhythm. In a Pro-Am, playing with recreational golfers, that time stretches to seven, eight, even nine minutes between shots. Doing this for five hours completely throws off the rhythm they’ve worked all week to perfect, right before they need it most.
The mental side is even worse. Imagine you’re an exceptional business executive, about to give the most important presentation of your career on Friday. Would you spend your Thursday at a community college, talking about introductory business practices with students who are still learning the basics? Of course not. You’d be putting the final touches on your presentation.
For a golfer, trying to get in the zone for a tournament while watching four-and-a-half hours of bad shots (and listening to players argue about the intricacies of the out of bounds rule) is the exact same thing. It’s a mental drain at the worst possible time.
If you need proof, just look at the biggest names. Players like Rory, Scotty, and Justin have played a minimal number of Pro-Ams in their careers. Tiger Woods was famous for having last-minute “scheduling conflicts” whenever a Pro-Am was required for an event. It’s the unspoken truth on tour. They avoid them whenever they can because they know it diminishes their chance of winning.
We’ve talked about how the pro feels, the players who know exactly how far they can hit with any club, the ones we go out there to see play every tournament, but let’s spare a thought for the person who has it even worse: the caddie. For them, a Pro-Am is a five-hour tightrope walk over a pit of crocodiles.
Their number one job is to protect their player. Keep them focused, maintain their rhythm, and prepare them for the tournament. But their second, unspoken job during a Pro-Am is to act as a social buffer, a swing whisperer, and a part-time entertainer for the amateurs.
While their pro is trying to find a quiet moment to visualize a tee shot, the caddie is fielding questions like, “Do you think I’m coming over the top?” from a 22-handicap who just topped one 80 yards. They’re asked to read a squiggly 15-footer for a net par, all while knowing their pro hasn’t hit a meaningful shot in ten minutes and is slowly starting to boil inside.
They have to smile and nod through endless business stories and bad jokes, all while counting the seconds until the round is over. They get all the frustration of the day with none of the glory or the sponsor handshake. For a caddie, the Pro-Am isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s the longest, most mentally draining day of the tournament week. And not all caddies are paid well.
The $25,000 Handshake
Let’s be blunt about why this entire, flawed tradition will never disappear. It comes down to money. And a staggering amount of it.
To get a spot in a marquee PGA Tour Pro-Am, a company or individual might spend anywhere from $15,000 to $30,000, and sometimes even more. A single foursome with a top player can represent a six-figure check written directly to the tournament.
You multiply that by 30 or 40 groups, and you’re suddenly looking at the millions of dollars required to fund the tournament purse, pay for the massive operational costs, and, most importantly, make the significant charitable donations that are central to the Tour’s image.
This is the golden handcuff for the players. They know this money directly or indirectly funds their paycheck. They understand that the person they’re shaking hands with on the first tee just made a donation that could fund a local children’s hospital wing for a year. So, can they complain? Absolutely not.
They’d be crucified as ungrateful millionaires. And so they put on a happy face, knowing that the very system that allows them to compete for millions is simultaneously diminishing their ability to do it at their best.
No Such Thing as a Perfect Pro Am
Every pro and caddie secretly dreams of the “unicorn” Pro-Am group. What does it look like?
It’s a group of three amateurs who are all single-digit handicaps. They understand etiquette instinctively. They play “ready golf,” they stay out of the pro’s line of sight, and they know when to talk and when to be quiet. The conversation is genuine. Maybe they ask the pro an insightful question about course management on the walk between holes, but they’d never dream of asking for a swing tip.
The round moves at a decent clip, the pro stays in rhythm, and the day actually feels like a productive warm-up. The pro might even walk off the 18th green feeling relaxed and having made a real connection.
Now, here’s why that’s a unicorn: the spots aren’t sold based on golfing ability. They’re sold to executives, top clients, and high-level sponsors. These are brilliant, successful people, but they’re often busy people who only play golf a handful of times a year. Their priority is the unique experience and the business networking opportunity, not protecting the pro’s competitive headspace.
The very financial model that makes the Pro-Am exist is what makes the “ideal” Pro-Am group a statistical impossibility. So while every pro holds out a sliver of hope for the unicorn, they walk to the first tee on Wednesday fully expecting the opposite, and their expectations are almost always met.
So, what’s the solution? I’m not saying get rid of them entirely. But the current format, which serves more to feed an executive’s ego than to prepare a player, is flawed. Maybe it’s one big event at Pebble Beach each year, or a dedicated off-season weekend for all the sponsors. But requiring 18 holes of slow golf the day before a tournament is a tradition that needs a serious second look.
