I agree with the reply above, money is very hard to come by. It gets a little better later on, but not much. If you're just starting, I would just play a ton of golf for experience points. Either online or with the AI. Do all 18 holes. You really want to get your stats up. You get some more abilities and your scores will get better. That will help with doing the tournaments. Also do the weekly, monthly, and up. You get some pretty loot if finish well as well as some lower-level specs that will you play better. You can always preview what rewards you get. I used to say log in every day and do the dailies, the amateur and pro, and pretty easy. They rotate now, so whenever they come up in the top 2 slots do those.
You can also do the challenges. The one with EA logo I believe is where can win some money but also get free clothes and equipment. I've also heard you can get some ok money higher level specs with career. I can say for sure as I've heard there are some issues with it that are possibly to be fixed in an upcoming patch, so been holding off the career mode for now.