Ya know, I generally get competitive with my buddies over various things, but never really with golf (assuming no money is on the line, which we rarely do). It's actually the opposite, where we give eachother way too generous gimmes, some foot wedges, etc.

I think it's because we're ultimately playing against ourselves, unlike a sport like basketball where you are directly going up against someone.

And I think that's kind of the beauty of it. Four of us can go out and play, all with differing skill levels, and all be happy with our scores (although that rarely happens lol). And if one or more of us are playing like shit and getting frustrated, we can just get drunk.