My RETURN To Tournament Golf | Everything You Need To Know About Mini Tour Golf

so the year was 2017 mini tour pro named andrew jensen started a youtube channel and almost every video started off like this driving to a tournament four years later a year removed from my last tournament and i'm driving to a tournament [Music] the ogs would recognize that intro that was the intro from the very first time the channel was around back in 2017 i'm very feeling very nostalgic for this video and this this tournament yeah i haven't played a tournament in 11 months because i'm not a full-time player but back when i started the channel with a little bit more hair less grace a single man full-time player who loved youtube felt like hey let's make youtube videos about this there wasn't much golf on youtube other than like course vlogs and instruction changed so much in the last four years but i still want to tell stories about professional golf so i'm going to go down to port st lucie play two-day minor league tour event i've never played a minor league tour event my game feels okay we'll see what happens but i want to like do what i did back in 2017 and 2018 throughout all those tournament vlogs where i got to share kind of what the experience was like what it cost how hard it is how annoying it is how fun it can be i want to do all that in in this video today so i've got a three hour drive one of the fun parts about mini tour golf you drive everywhere gonna play a practice round stay in a days inn and then play a two-day event where i basically have to finish third to break even so welcome to mini tour golf we've made it down here to hammock creek change in the parking lot kind of that's par for the course for for many tour players play a practice round today and and i'm paying for this practice right that's the first thing that a lot of people don't know about a mini tour developmental tool to a pga tour cornfer and all that you just kind of book your practice around on your own nine times out of ten you're paying for it sometimes courses will arrange it but like i publicly went on the website just booked a tee time forty dollars so that's our first expense maybe i pay for range balls maybe i don't we'll check in on that later see it play it and hopefully learn enough of it so that i can actually be competitive tomorrow yeah so i had to pay for range balls so practice round range balls taxes all in it was a cool 50 so that's our first expense 50 for practice [Music] see this is like one of the most important things for me when i'm coming to play a practice round day before don't get a lot of time to get a huge feel for the golf course especially if i don't know the golf course i just want to know i've got a good feel on the greens because for two days i hit it in some wrong spots or hit it badly i can save a lot with a good feel on the greens and things feel great let me go out and play now you really want to dive into like deep in depth look at a practice round i made a video about that like last month whereas today i got a buddy who lives down here we're just gonna go have some fun have a hit around hammock creek and just keep it relaxed keep it fun and enjoy this golf course no way [Music] all right [Music] stack necklace design reminds me a lot of keane's point which i used to play a few times back when i played some florida elite tour events jack nicklaus florida design good par fours really good par threes greens are smooth greens are pretty straightforward a little bit of subtlety to them grain is really active [Music] nice golf course i'm sure guys that are familiar with this place can go low out here my guess if the weather is fine for two rounds it's probably gonna take like 12 under par to win this thing there's birdies to be made that's for sure it's a really good golf course gotta hit some good shots good shots will be rewarded bad shots will be penalized good short game will definitely go working man center it's been a day 15.3 day strain on a 73 recovery that's a good ass day to start a tournament week and you can tell by this beautiful artwork and lighting i'm in my hotel and this is the second expense that uh i'm going to talk about 215 bucks for two nights in my days in not a hit you can hear everybody there's airplanes passing over so sleep is going to be of the utmost priority because you need to be rested before tournament golf you want your body ready to rock so yeah beam dream baby gonna sleep like a baby tonight because not everybody has afforded the luxury of playing a local tour someone like myself under these situations i got to travel and spend some nights in a hotel boy an event i'm gonna i'm gonna break down why this tour and all the other tour options and entry fees tomorrow after my round i'm playing at 9 15 so i'm going to bed i will talk to you tomorrow you got me down again they won in the books pretty decent i'm not gonna lie it was a little squirrely out there i shot two over par 73 off to a really good start finding my feet again playing tournament golf pace was awesome so i never really had time to kind of slow down and like maybe get in my head too much unfortunately hoseled one on the eighth hole i was even par through seven hoseled one made bogey and then from there on out it was a fight kind of trust my golf swing i steered it quite a bit in the middle of that round and a little bit towards the end couple bad long irons in the in the rain the wind and got it to three over but then i was like you know i had par fives to finish battling back making some decent golf swings i had to look for birdie on the 15th hole ah straight up the hill a little bit of grain i was going to play pretty straight green hill burnt the right edge so frustrating to miss it and then up on 17 hit a great drive you had to take it up the right side be aggressive it trickled kind of right in between two trees so i had to hit this kind of hero shot hood a five iron like this and hit it out over the road and just try to get it back i got lucky i thinned it kind of went through a tree but then i got up and down for birdie to get two over and then on 18 you know i guess i just pulled it a little steery short sided myself hit a great bunker shot and an awesome putt to make par and yeah like i'm happy with that i haven't golfed competitively in nearly a year and and when i did it it was like a struggle to break 80. so shooting 73 right in the middle of the pack and that's kind of like the last spot to get paid first things first though i got to get gas that's another expense probably about two tanks of gas maybe not quite so we'll contact on 60 but i said i'm in the middle of the pack so i'm gonna get this tank of gas head back to the hotel room and we're gonna dive into the entry fee the purse and why this tour and all the other tours out there that you could potentially play if you want to grind away at minitor golf let's get into it the the entry fee first and foremost was 360 dollars to play this two-day event but i had to pay an additional fifty dollars on top of that so we're looking at four ten because i'm not a member of the minor league tour the membership fee is three hundred dollars and i'm not gonna pay all that one event they charge event membership fees and those fifty dollars go towards your your membership fee it is one of those things that newer developmental tours aren't charging membership fees the membership fee is a very hot button controversial thing i understand there's overhead there's operating expenses and all that but there's still a lot taken off each entry fee for the events so the membership fee to join the tour is is kind of going by the wayside but these longer lasting longer term tours they still charge them feel how you want about that let's look at just how much money we're playing for this week there's 29 guys in this event 7 460 dollar purse you can see right there first place is 1500 bucks my expenses are 725 for this whole thing i would have to finish fourth to cover all of my expenses what he does with this tour is he pays half a field then guarantees the top quarter will get your entry fee back so in this case 15 spots being paid eighth place will get your entry fee back so that is good a lot of tours strictly just pay 33 of the field there's 29 players paying 360 dollars my 50 bucks didn't go into that purse you know that's over 10 000 in the purse 7 400 is what we're playing for there's course expenses they're operating expenses so yes this is just an organized money game for lack of a better comparison why the minor league tour how did i find out about the minor league tour this is what i want to dive into i get these dms hey andrew what tour should i play or where is their tours it's so simple google mini tour golf insert location here you know wherever you are google it i don't want i don't want to be that blunt but it is that simple like everyone's got to figure it out find it out yeah i want to help you i'm going to list all the mini tours that i know i mean in canada you have the vancouver golf tour the great lakes tour the toronto players tour east coast pro tour there might be more but those are the ones that i know in florida we have the minor league tour the west florida tour the florida pro tour which is kind of the daytona orlando area i don't know if the florida elite tour is still doing things in the orlando area you have the moonlight tour in orlando and when it comes to a bit of travel you have the swing thought tour the g pro tour and then up in the carolinas you have coastal players tour the mountain tour on the west coast i don't know much i know there's the golden state tour all pro tour in texas i think maybe there's a pepsi tour i don't know if that's around still there's a lot you want to know what they are just hit pause as they've been coming up on the screen and then and then do the research yourself because oh dakota's tour there's a dakotas tour there's a lot of tours out there and that's how you decide which tour you want to invest your money your game into this right here for me coming down to south florida it's great it's fun i'm enjoying getting my juices flowing to play an event but this isn't sustainable you know eight hundred dollars every event and have to finish fourth or better just to break even that's not sustainable this tour runs like three round competitive rounds a week there's a lot of competitive play if you live here for me in jacksonville there's really nothing you research the tour you look into the entry fees you look into how they pay relative to the purse figure it out yourself some tours pros for pros tour that's another tour i'm just remembering tour rolling red tour in atlanta like a lot of tours want to pop up offer better for the players because in a long time of the organizer is making the most money and that's tough that's the tough thing about mini tour and developmental tour golf you gotta play really really good golf some guy's gonna play really great this week shoot maybe eight ten under par for two rounds and win fifteen hundred bucks it's tough because like that that good golf would go a very long way on the mckenzie tour on the corn fairy tour it's the same quality of golf but a hundred the purse basically that is one of the difficult things but i'm in 725 bucks for this event would be great to play well tomorrow and push into that top quarter of the field to at least get my entry fee back but this isn't my livelihood anymore i have a job i have a steady income that is helping offset these expenses for this tournament when i did this full-time you're in the hole you got to play well and that's a lot a lot of pressure and if you don't play well in round one you're kind of out of it it's tough it's really really tough so developmental mini tour golf is not for the we faint of heart and it's a really hard grind it's a mental mental challenge because the money dries up really really quick i mean even okay golf you can lose a lot of money playing minis for golf so you need to have a lot of money in the bank plan and after tomorrow's round i think i'm going to kind of give my last little bit of advice as to how to approach just what you need to do if you want to embark on a mini tour developmental tour plan to get yourself to a higher tour back at the house round two in the books didn't film i apologize i was the passenger in the two-person cart yesterday i was riding solos it was kind of easy to clip the gopro on and get some shots on the other side of the car you do you walk a lot more i just didn't want to get in the way so i didn't record anything i don't think it changed anything i played pretty much the same if not better except for three holes i made five birdies triple bogey the very first hole and made two doubles in this so the fifth and fifteenth hole it's a bit of palmetto bush trouble and on the first flight i lost i pulled it out of bounds in someone's backyard so 15 really good holes three really bad holes didn't finish in the money but it reminds me how happy i am that it's not my full-time job i'm not trying to do this week in and weekend that kind of leads me to the last little pro golf 101 if you want to play professional golf and start at the mini tour level you need to do what i just did this week all the time if you think on the pga tour average player maybe plays 28 tournaments a year they're not going to make every cut they play in but they're still getting anywhere from 70 to 100 competitive rounds a year and a lot of mini tour golf is pretty spread out and maybe you'd do a two day here a one day at the end of the next week and when all is said and done it's really easy to play 30 competitive rounds in a year and that's not even close to what you would get if you wanted to transition to the mackenzie tour the corn ferry tour the pga tour you need to play a lot of competitive golf and get a lot of reps when you play very minimal reps it's really easy to over analyze and and and put a lot of pressure as well like if this was my only event and i'm gonna play another event and i really need to play well it's so much pressure thankfully that's not my racket anymore i have a full-time job making these videos this was a lot of fun i miss it i would love to dedicate a month of playing every week getting 10 12 competitive rounds in a month maybe 15 but i don't think that's in the cards anytime soon that's what you need to do so if you want to play you find through one of these tours you project out but if you do what i just did 25 times so add that up what it costs add up what you're playing for it's it's a tough go but you're getting your reps consider it your your post grad education if you want to pursue developmental mini tour golf you're not doing it to make money you're doing it to gain experience to build confidence and kind of learn the ropes of what it could take at the highest level of this game it just takes consistent solid play week after week after week after week and if you're only playing at four competitive rounds in a month you're not gonna you're just find something else to do honestly like because it's not an accurate representation of what you have to do and then the whole other caveat is if you find an area and there's a ton of tournament golf to play there and you want to do it all from your own home and never travel that's not a really good representation of what it will be like if you want to transition to the next level because on the next level there's travel there's hotels there's all that the planning all the expenses the the stress i had terrible sleeps for two nights how does that affect your game there's all kinds of other things in professional golf a stationary mini tour where you get to sleep in your own bed does not prepare you for and does not even come close to what it is actually like being on the road being away from the ones you love being away from your practice routines your support system it's a very very difficult life it costs a lot of money it costs a lot on you emotionally physically all of that stuff but it's still a lot of fun and it's still very rewarding if you see the fruits of your labor so this whole video it's been so much fun filming it i hope you've learned a lot drop a comment below your experiences with mini tour golf developmental tour golf if you've played any of these tours if i've missed any tours let us know down below because there's a lot of us heck there's two guys this week came up to me and back andrew i watched your videos over the years and they've helped me learn what i needed to do to turn pro a guy i played with today's like oh yeah i watched your video about the expenses and it really helped me so that's what this is all about 73.75 i'm not pulling any punches thinking oh i'm gonna make a run to try to play full time again i'm not i'm gonna stick to doing this full-time and i really hope you're enjoying it so give it a thumbs up subscribe if you're not subscribed and we'll see you in the next video [Music] peace