"Pressure is playing for ten dollars when you don't have a dime in your pocket"
About this Quote
The intent is to puncture the glamorous mythology around athletic “clutch” moments. Trevino, a working-class kid who shined shoes and grew up with financial scarcity, reframes stress as something you learn long before a TV camera finds you. In that light, golf’s genteel image gets quietly upended: for many, it’s not leisure, it’s livelihood. When you’re broke, every swing carries the weight of rent, food, dignity. That’s pressure.
The subtext has bite. He’s not just claiming toughness; he’s calling out a common misreading of adversity. Plenty of people with stable safety nets confuse discomfort with danger. Trevino’s line draws a hard boundary: pressure begins when consequences are non-negotiable and immediate, when failure isn’t a lesson but a loss you can’t absorb.
It also explains his persona - the wisecracking, unpretentious anti-snob in a sport that often polices class through etiquette and access. By anchoring “pressure” to money you don’t have, he makes a broader cultural argument: resilience isn’t an attitude you download; it’s a skill forged when there’s no cushion. Golf, in Trevino’s telling, becomes a stage where class anxiety plays through a quiet, brutal economy of swings.
Quote Details
| Topic | Stress |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite | Cite this Quote |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Trevino, Lee. (n.d.). Pressure is playing for ten dollars when you don't have a dime in your pocket. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/pressure-is-playing-for-ten-dollars-when-you-dont-160473/
Chicago Style
Trevino, Lee. "Pressure is playing for ten dollars when you don't have a dime in your pocket." FixQuotes. Accessed February 1, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/pressure-is-playing-for-ten-dollars-when-you-dont-160473/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Pressure is playing for ten dollars when you don't have a dime in your pocket." FixQuotes, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/pressure-is-playing-for-ten-dollars-when-you-dont-160473/. Accessed 1 Feb. 2026.








