Two-time U.S. Open champion Curtis Strange recently spoke glowingly to Sports Illustrated about his memories of the Skins Game—but pooh-poohed the idea of a reboot.
“I would hate to see them try to re-invent the Skins Game,” Strange says. “It was a great show while it lasted. Those sequels never work, do they?”
Next year, we’ll find out.
Pro Shop, a media company led by Full Swing executive producer Chad Mumm, announced a deal last week with the PGA Tour to resurrect the Skins Game after a 16-year hiatus. Pro Shop is partnering with Propagate Content to produce the television extravaganza, which will air on Black Friday in 2025.
Many details such as a network partner, players and the purse, are still being ironed out.
The original Skins Game debuted in 1983 as an exhibition with Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, and Gary Player—not to mention Vin Scully doing play-by-play—and ran for 25 years, establishing itself as a Thanksgiving weekend staple. The format consists of four players competing to win individual holes with a dollar value up for grabs on each hole. If there is a tie, the money rolls over.
“It was certainly a much-watch spectacle on TV,” says Strange, who won the competition twice as a player and was later part of its broadcast team with ABC.
But despite Tiger Woods’s involvement in the 1990s and ’00s, the Skins Game’s ratings began to decline—and its euthanization came in 2009 when LG pulled the title sponsorship.
Alastair Johnston, an IMG Golf executive who was Arnold Palmer’s agent and played an integral part in creating the first Skins Game, told SI that he believes the minds behind the relaunch are credible, but adds, “they’re looking for and they’re on a fishing trip.”
So how did its revival come to fruition?
Mumm, like many, grew up watching the Skins Game, telling SI that along with the Masters, it
was one of the must-see golf events of the year (they were the two highest-rated golf tournaments for much of the ’80s). And after the success of Netflix’s Full Swing in early 2023, Mumm knew exactly what he wanted his next venture to be.
“It was one of the first things I asked (the PGA Tour) about,” Mumm says.
Once Mumm got the rights to the project, the first person he called was his friend Ben Silverman, Propagate co-CEO and Emmy-winning executive producer of The Office—and an avid golfer and fan of the original Skins Game.
“There's nobody better tapping into Hollywood than Ben,” Mumm says. “It was just a natural fit.”
But compared to its debut over four decades ago, the new Skins Game will have to overcome various obstacles to find success.
First, the sports calendar during Thanksgiving weekend is now jam-packed, highlighted by Amazon’s Black Friday NFL game and college football rivalry games. Silverman, however, views that as a positive.
“As the former chairman of (NBC Entertainment), there's nothing more important than your lead-in,” Silverman says. “So you can imagine that all the conversations we're having involve being aligned with these incredible Black Friday entertainment opportunities both within sport and actual entertainment.”
One of the key elements that made the Skins Game exhilarating was the amount of cash at stake. At first, the competition awarded its winners more money than major championships. The game’s greatest players were visibly nervous lining up a putt worth over $100,000. Viewers were on the edge of their seats.
However, part of the Skins Game’s demise can be attributed to rising purses in the Woods era. Now, especially after the inception of LIV Golf, prize money is more exorbitant than ever. This year, Scottie Scheffler pocketed a record $29,228,357 on Tour in earnings, plus another $31,000,000 in bonuses. In 1983, Hal Sutton led the Tour in earnings with $426,668. The most Woods won in a single season was $10,867,052 (2006-07).
But Silverman still believes there’s a way to engage the viewer with more than just a pile of cash.
“What's even better than earning money from a title sponsor? Earning money from your competition,” Silverman says. “And I think you're gonna see some intra-rivalry stuff here that's never been seen on television before … we’re going to have a lot that goes on among the players beyond just how they're competing for the pot.”
And the production off the course will be just as paramount to the event's success as the golf.
“You know the producer of The Office is gonna bring some funny stuff to the skins,” Silverman says. “We got to have the combo platter of both the high-end entertainment that Chad and I are known for and the high-end golf at the PGA Tour. It’s bread and butter for sure.”
Another part of the original Skins Game’s downfall was the players it showcased towards the end. The days of Nicklaus and Palmer yielded to Jesper Parnevik, Fred Funk and K.J. Choi; though Woods, Phil Mickelson and Annika Sorenstam made multiple appearances during the ’00s.
In an era where celebrity golf is booming, the plan is to have solely professionals participating in the event. Still, it is undetermined whether it will be mixed-gender, as “The Match,” which is derived from the Skins Game, did in February with Rose Zhang and Lexi Thompson.
But regardless of who is playing, the relaunch will have one big theme: heritage. And that begins with where it will be played.
All 26 of its editions were contested in the desert, mostly in the Palm Springs, Calif., area, which Strange said was “part of the viewership,” as courses like that were never seen before. That will likely remain; though, a venue has not yet been named.
“It’s highly likely that it’s gonna be the desert somewhere,” Mumm said, “because that feels like a part of the lore of the Skins Game.”
Johnston’s advice for the reboot would be to create something a broad audience has never experienced and can easily understand. Yet, he’s skeptical that today’s media landscape will allow the event to pull the colossal viewership it once did.
“Back then it was unique,” he says. “We essentially had three networks, one of whom covered this, and the audience didn't have the same alternatives.
“It’s a very different time. Yeah, calling it a Skins Game and playing it on a Friday, that’s history. But you got to do a lot more than just reflect on history and imagine that you can repeat it.”
For many, the Skins Game represents Thanksgiving weekend in a bygone era. And though much has changed since it was last played in 2008, let alone when it debuted 41 years ago, the goal is to make the sequel a holiday mainstay once again—invoking memories of the past while introducing it to a new generation.
“One of the things that made the Skins Game so iconic was the flag-in-the-ground date,” Mumm says. “People knew it was a part of their Thanksgiving tradition. And I think part of the challenge of some of the made-for-TV stuff that's been going on is having a home where people can expect it.
“That mix of nostalgia and having that flag in the ground, like we are part of your holiday tradition—just like the NFL, just like Charlie Brown, just like your turkey. That's a huge element and one of the things that we're really excited about.”
This article was originally published on www.si.com as The Skins Game Is Returning and Organizers Hope Its Nostalgia Still Sells.
