“Skin Game” is a melancholy trip down memory lane
The morning after the feast, with tryptophan still coursing through my veins, I woke early and indulged in a form of consumption that a pilgrim on that first Thanksgiving wouldn’t have realized: live streaming golf on a personal device.
What a difference a few decades makes.
More than 40 years ago, in the days when Vin Scully was still calling the shots, I listened to the first Skins Game on a small black-and-white TV in my college dorm room, fiddling with the bunny ears for better reception. The event is now playing on my laptop, streaming over Ethernet on a platform owned by the world’s largest online retailer (perfect for Black Friday).
Sports is business and business is sports. Always. This was evident in 1983 when Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and Gary Player competed in Desert Mountain, Arizona. That debut Skins had its sponsors, its logo and its corporate imprint. But compared to Friday’s iteration — the 2025 Capital One Skins Game — it feels about as wacky as a trip to the mall. The total prize money at the time was $360,000—about a quarter of the value of the final hole this time—and the entire enterprise had an air of holiday escapism. Not only did you watch the golf game, but you also watched the desert sun and the banter between four aging legends. Even though the first Skins was recorded, edited and aired over the course of two days, it still gives you the feeling of stumbling upon something unscripted in the pre-December lull.
Then it disappears. After 2008, the event disappeared for 17 years, a hiatus long enough to wipe out an entire generation of fans. The decision to resume golf marks a departure from today’s televised golf events, which openly target younger generations through TGL and YouTube influencer tournaments. This skin is more of a tribute to Whitebeard and a gentle stroll down memory lane.
Radio leans into this nostalgia. It begins with highlights from the inaugural tournament—retro graphics, Sansabelts, a silver-haired Arnold Palmer—as if to invite us to remember not just the four-man game, but its era. Interviews with past players are featured throughout the coverage. Annika Sorenstam called to recall the situation. So did Fred Couples, who relayed an endearingly ill-timed moment, revealing that he had offered to handle the introduction to the first tee until he realized the event was in Florida, not Palm Springs.
If anything, all the looking back helps bring clarity to the situation now. Couple summed it up best: In this event, you don’t really worry about your performance. All you care about is money. As a fan, you can also prioritize your money by placing live bets on matches. DraftKings makes a cameo during a commercial break.
None of these are reasons to be jealous of this year’s cast. Xander Schauffele, Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry and Keegan Bradley are all very likeable players who are still in their prime and still capable of putting up shooting performances. There’s a little bit of that. Bradley played the most consistently and took away the most skin. Rusty Schauffele was shut out but won the entertainment category for his hilarious sense of humor and spot-on, off-the-cuff Sam Burns impression.
Despite its retro content, the tournament also draws on some recent history in the form of the Ryder Cup, which adds a touch of fun to the banter. Lowry couldn’t resist a playful jab at Bradley: “I’ve been breaking Keegan Bradley’s heart the last few months,” he said after halving it with a birdie putt on the second hole. Every viewer knows the context, regardless of their age.
Reviews, meanwhile, were mostly syrupy, befitting a televised dessert, although it could have been done without some icing. Peter Jacobsen, an affable man and a veteran of many laughs himself, tried to convey the nerves as if this was the Masters rather than a cushy payday. It was as if Fleetwood hadn’t taken off from his home in Dubai at the last minute and started the match without a practice round.
In addition to the effects of jet lag, he had to wake up early to catch tee times, not because golf fans were clamoring for Dawn Patrol skins, but because the game needed to be cleaned up before the Bears’ game against the Eagles. Even a big-money four-ball game pales in comparison to the economic power of the NFL.
Do I sound like a grumpy old guy?
I didn’t mean it. Mostly, what I feel is melancholy, which shouldn’t be a shock. While helping us reconnect with the way things used to be, nostalgia also highlights a sense of what we’ve lost. I’m not naive. I don’t believe that the early eighties were a time of innocence, nor do I believe that Jack and Arnie weren’t in it for the money. Was the world really so different then than it is today? Probably not. But I’ve seen relatively few. Thinking about it, maybe what I miss the most is my youth, which no amount of skin can buy back.
