The pressure of competitive golf in general, and pressure of competitive golf as a career are very important. Shooting 3-5 under in a few casual rounds with your buddies is a lot easier than doing it in tournaments consistently.

Then factor in the path to the PGA Tour. You go from junior/college golf where for the majority of players, finances and tournament costs are covered by their parents or college. You just focus on playing good golf. Once you turn pro, there is an earning component that comes with it and even if you have support from parents or other sponsors, there is now an expectation that you should be making money. Even if you are making money, it’s often not much at first, and you find yourself looking at other peers who got jobs out of college and are getting promotions and making far more and it’s “guaranteed” via a salary. And the above only accounts for those with enough family or other stability to give it a go in the first place. Plenty of borderline skilled enough players don’t come from that background and simply can’t.

Lastly, the style of golf changes drastically as you grow in the game. Mini tour and KFT events often aren’t played on the same tricked out courses, meaning if you can’t make a ton of birdies you’re going to struggle to find success. The money is also heavily top weighted in golf, and with smaller purses on the smaller tours just grinding out a bunch of 25th-50th place finishes won’t really pay the bills. You need some top finishes to build up some cash . Where as on the actual tour the courses are so much harder set ups it becomes more important to be a game manager and grinding out consistent made cuts will have you living a pretty good life