The Skins Game will return in 2025 and take place on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.
Here’s an ideal lineup for The Skins Game, which will return in 2025 after 16-year hiatus
What used to be one of the more popular events on the golfing calendar will re-launch next year after a lengthy break.
Jack Milko has been playing golf since he was five years old. He has yet to record a hole-in-one, but he did secure an M.A. in Sports Journalism from St. Bonaventure University.
Chad Mumm, the executive producer of Netflix’s Full Swing, announced the news on Thursday. His new golf media company, Pro Shop, will work with the PGA Tour to produce The Skins Game, which last took place in 2008. This partnership will also include Propagate Content, a leading content studio that is about to release a new Owen Wilson golf comedy series on Apple TV+.
Specific details about who will play, what course, and how much is at stake were not revealed.
So that has given us an idea.
But first, what is a skin?
In this sense, each hole is assigned a monetary value, and the player with the lowest score receives the money for that hole. If two or more players tie a certain hole, the total money is carried over to the following hole, thus doubling its value.
It’s all about money, but the format is unique and made for TV. You can mic up every player, get their thoughts about the competition while they play, and air it on the West Coast for prime-time viewing back east.
But what would make it appointment television?
The four major champions in 2025 should be the four golfers participating in The Skins Game.
Think about it.
The original iteration featured only four players every year, many of them household names like Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, and Arnold Palmer. Lee Trevino played plenty of times and famously made a hole-in-one in 1987, perhaps the most iconic moment in this event’s history. Tiger Woods also participated on six occasions, last doing so in 2005, but never won. The most successful Skins Game player was actually Fred Couples, who emerged victorious five times in this event.
Imagine if we re-created The Skins Game this year.
You would arguably have the world’s three best players, Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, and Bryson DeChambeau, competing for money side-by-side, mano y mano. Scheffler, of course, won at Augusta National, and Schauffele won the PGA Championship and the Open Championship. DeChambeau, meanwhile, bested Rory McIlroy at Pinehurst No. 2.
Speaking of McIlroy, since he is the highest-ranked player in the world who did not win a major in 2024, he should slide in as the fourth player in this hypothetical. So we would have Scheffler, Schauffele, McIlroy, and DeChambeau playing in The Skins Game, which would undoubtedly draw plenty of intrigue.
The same can be said for The Showdown next week, which will pit LIV Golf’s Brooks Koepka and Dechambeau against Scheffler and McIlroy, two PGA Tour stalwarts. But the beauty of our scenario is that it takes the PGA-LIV divide aside and focuses on the four major winners. Whoever wins should earn the invite, regardless of tour, world ranking, and nationality.
Under this hypothetical scenario, here would be the last 10 Skins Games, not counting 2020, because the pandemic canceled The Open. An asterisk next to a player’s name indicates that this player did not win but instead held the highest Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) at the end of the Tour Championship. The asterisk only appears if another player won two or more majors within a year:
2023: Brian Harman, Wyndham Clark, Brooks Koepka, Jon Rahm
2022: Cameron Smith, Matt Fitzpatrick, Justin Thomas, Scottie Scheffler
2021: Collin Morikawa, Jon Rahm, Phil Mickelson, Hideki Matsuyama
2019: Shane Lowry, Gary Woodland, Brooks Koepka, Tiger Woods
2018: Brooks Koepka, Francesco Molinari, Patrick Reed, Justin Rose*
2017: Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka, Sergio Garcia
2016: Jimmy Walker, Henrik Stenson, Dustin Johnson, Danny Willett
2015: Zach Johnson, Jason Day, Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy*
2014: Rory McIlroy, Martin Kaymer, Bubba Watson, Adam Scott*
2013: Jason Dufner, Phil Mickelson, Justin Rose, Adam Scott
These hypothetical Skin Games would have produced some incredible theater. Which one would have been your favorite? I think 2021 tops my list.
Nevertheless, Pro Shop and the PGA Tour should take notes. Give the major winners a little more notoriety at the end of the year and award them berths into the revitalized Skins Game.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.
