Someone once told me, and I've found it to be true so far:
At the lower levels (MA3/Rec and MA4/Novice for sure and to some extent MA2/Int) winning a tournament is not about who plays the best golf, but who makes the least number of mistakes. Look at scores in MA3 and MA4 division scores and you'll see those guys don't really shoot "down", i.e. under par, very often. If you played par golf in those divisions you'd almost certainly "cash", and probably come close to winning. Play for your "3" (or par) on every hole. Make safe drives to put you in a position for an easy upshot, good upshots leave you short putts. It's not a glamorous strategy, but a "3" on every hole is better than most players in those divisions will do. Where you get in trouble is trying for those "2"'s. The lower level players will make more mistakes trying for the "2" that end up costing themselves a "4" or "5". Slow and steady wins the race there. Having said all that, did you really sign up for a tournament to play safe on every hole? Where's the fun in that? So you have to decide how you're gonna play it. But I bet if you look back when it's done the top spots are sitting about par scores.
Once you get into MA2 and up you gotta take the chances. At those levels the skill of the players enables the rewards to more often outweigh the risks. You see MA1 player racking up birdies and only occasionally making the mistake to cost them a bogey. But they have the birds to offset them.