The Best (and Worst) of The Skins Game

From 1983 to 2008, The Skins Game was a yearly event featuring some of the PGA Tour’s best golfers facing each other in a golf format known as “skins,” where each hole is worth a set amount of money, the lowest score takes the money and a tie between golfers pushes the money to the next hole.

This year, Capital One and Amazon Prime partnered together to bring back The Skins Game on Black Friday, reviving an event that once drew higher ratings than major tournaments.

In its revival appearance, The Skins Game had its ups and downs with plenty of fun moments, but also improvements that need to be made for future iterations.

The Best: The Golfers

For an event that used to host golf legends like Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and more, they knew they had to come out swinging when it came to the lineup for the event.

Initially, Justin Thomas was supposed to be part of the group playing in the event, alongside Tommy Fleetwood, Keegan Bradley and Xander Schauffele; however, surgery on Thomas’ hip and back sidelined him. Instead of Thomas, Shane Lowry was the fourth and final player in the event.

While one could argue that the lineup was missing top golfers like Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy, these guys didn’t disappoint.

Thanks to the players being mic’d up the entire time, there was all kinds of trash talk between Lowry and Bradley about the Ryder Cup, Schauffele’s personality gave some amazing comic relief and while Fleetwood didn’t talk, watching him golf is always fun.

The golf was great too, as there were plenty of carryovers allowing for two of the biggest hole values in the event’s history and aggressive golf shots that these players wouldn’t normally hit in a regular tournament.

Overall, Bradley went home a winner, snagging 11 skins on the way to making $2.1 million. Fleetwood finished in second place after winning the largest pot in the event’s history on the final hole, taking home $1.7 million.

Following them was Lowry ($200,000), and Schauffele, who received a giant check for going home with absolutely 0 skins and no money.

More importantly, it seemed like the players had fun at the event, and the value of the players being mic’d up and the different interviews with Thomas and legends like Annika Sorenstam and Fred Couples made the viewing experience great for golf fans.

The Worst: The Marketing and Promotion of the Event

Let’s be honest, other than diehard golf fans, did anyone know this was on TV? For an event that in 1996 beat out the final round of The Masters in TV ratings, it felt like awareness of this was at an all-time low.

The crowd in attendance was decently large, but not as big as other Capital One golf matches in the past. On top of that, it seemed like no one knew the event was streaming on Prime.

After a brief scroll on X for the event, more posts said “Wish I knew this was happening” or “Wait, this is on TV?” rather than actually reacting to the event.

There were no commercials for the event on any kind of broadcasts leading up to the event; the only promotion was done on social media.

Plus, the allure of Black Friday being an all-sports day on Prime with golf, football and basketball sounds like a great idea, until that means that the golf starts at 9 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving, when everyone is sleeping off the day before.

The Best: A New Twist on a Classic Format

Normally, every golfer starts at $0 in a game of skins and accumulates money over time. This new format, however, introduced a reverse purse, meaning that every golfer started with $1 million.

As each hole was won or lost, the money value of that hole would be collectively taken out of the other three golfers' pockets. At first glance, this seemed like an odd change to make to a classic golf format.

Instead, it created some of the largest winnings in the event’s history and made the stakes even higher from hole to hole.

Some could argue that the large sums of money won per hole and starting with money make it less intense, but looking over a 6-foot putt when you have money to lose is way more nerve-racking than a 6-footer when you only have something to gain, making this a great change to the format.

The Worst: The Production

Prime always does a phenomenal job when they broadcast Thursday Night Football live, and there are little to no mistakes in their production. The Skins Game was the streaming giant’s first attempt at golf, and it wasn’t great.

Even though the players were mic’d up, there were still play-by-play commentators who, from time to time, would talk over the players, which is normal in events like this. What isn’t normal is constant audio switches to static, which happened almost every five minutes during the broadcast.

Add that to the interviews with Sorenstam and Couples feeling like they didn’t add much to the broadcast and some average camera work, you get a decent broadcast for what should have been a massive event.

The Best: The Course

As always, it’s a great idea to give respect and love to the course. The event took place at Panther National in Jupiter, Florida, a course created by Thomas and Nicklaus.

The course itself is tough, with demanding tee shots and undulating greens, but the length is also insane, measuring at nearly 8,000 yards from the back tees. Add in the wind that the golfers played in on Friday, and it’s as tough as a golf course can be.

Overall, The Skins Game’s revival was great in certain aspects, but if Prime can make the proper changes for the next iteration, then it may be brought back for good.

Dylan Sechrist is a fourth-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email dks5749@psu.edu.