There is a tourney mode in the menus. It's more used for on location really over a certain amount of days. Try it, you'll see...

There is also a competition mode if you turn it on and hold down the left flipper before you start a game. It makes the game more even between players.

You could use the tourney mode, but it will just let you know who got the highest score, which I doubt is what you want.

There are some software options online if you want to do a bracket event, or a normal point tourney. You can also play pingolf where you set a score and then see how many balls it takes each person to surpass that score.

If that's what he's going for, setting the award type to Prize will accomplish this. Use the custom option, not quick start. Select High Score, not Bump & Win. Set ending time, number of prizes (high scores to keep track of), start tournament, set game to free play and you're good to go.

Can you (or anyone) elaborate with more details on how the "Competition mode" works?

Competition mode is a standard setting that equalizes mystery awards and scoring for all players. This is the setting used for tournaments. Mystery awards typically are awarded in a specific order, although multiballs and other things can change them slightly. Player competition, also a standard setting, allows both normal play and competition play. Hold in left flipper with at least one credit until display says hit start now, hit start button. I enable this on all my location Stern's.

Neither of these are related to Tops tournaments, which have their own section of manual and diag menu. Read your manual for more details. If either section of you manual is missing, download the manual for an earlier SAM game from Stern's website. Tops and standard settings are essentially the same for all SAM games and the older manuals seem to be more complete.

Does competition mode also eliminate extra balls and give you scoring instead for them? If not how to do employ this, like the settings that are implemented for PAPA tournaments.