The Skins Game Is Golf’s Answer to ‘$25,000 Pyramid’

There are six kinds of athletic events I try not to watch:

1. Events in which the players wear plaid pants.

2. Events in which the players wear tasseled shoes.

3. Events in which the players don’t perspire.

4. Events in which the players don’t move their feet.

5. Events in which players and spectators yell encouragement at the ball, i.e.: “Get legs!”

6. Events in which the primary appeal is not the game itself, but the amount of money at stake.

By crazy coincidence, there was an event on TV last weekend that met all six criteria. It was called the Skins Game. I missed it.

I still don’t know what a skin is. I don’t even know who the TV announcers were. I’m guessing Bob Eubanks and Robin Givens.

It must have been very exciting. Four great golfers battling it out for 2 grueling days for a total purse of $450,000. I’m not sure on what basis the golfers were chosen, but it seemed to have something to do with accumulated wealth.

This was the Coals to Newcastle Classic.

Raymond Floyd won $290,000. He was also given a Toyota and a Rolex watch, so he could drive to the bank in time to deposit the $290,000.

When you offer four golfers $450,000 in prize money, why do you also offer a Rolex watch and a Toyota car? Incentive, I guess.

Jack Nicklaus came away with $125,000, Lee Trevino eked out $35,000 because he sank one decent putt, and Curtis Strange made the same amount of money most of us made over the weekend: $0.

Not that the money was important. It was pride the boys were playing for. The money was just something to give the golfers something to joke and kibitz about.

“If you had us playing for $10 or $25 a hole, we would still be trying just as hard,” Floyd said.

A nice thought. Absurdly preposterous, but nice.

You couldn’t have a TV golf event where four great players play for $25 a hole. That would leave $449,000 left over that nobody would know what to do with, not to mention that Rolex and that Toyota.

It would also knock out 99% of the TV viewing audience, and it would eliminate those poignant and dramatic scenes in which one golfer sinks a birdie putt, then drops to his knees, kidding but serious, to pray that nobody matches him.

Decreasing the purse by $449,000 and one watch and one car would also, methinks, decrease the starting field by four golfers.

A certain elemental thrill is added to the spectacle when the announcer can whisper: “Here’s Nicklaus lining up a twisting, downhill, 25-foot putt, Robin. If he sinks this, he’ll win $190,000, a car, a wristwatch and Maui.”

Tennis and golf are sports that measure the magnitude of their events mainly in dollars and cents. You have tournaments billed as the Million Dollar Challenge and the $500,000 Greater Duckburg Grand Slam of Tennis. You never hear of the $6-million NBA finals, or the $29-trillion World Series of baseball.

You never hear Vin Scully saying: “So here’s Jose Canseco digging in, bases loaded, full count. This swing, Joe, is worth $473,000 in bonuses and endorsement opportunities to Canseco.”

“That’s right, Vinny, and let’s not forget that brand new Corvette, parked in the on-deck circle, to be driven off by the next player to hit a home run.”

“In fact, Joe, the lucky winner will be allowed to drive the car around the bases. If Canseco should whiff here, though, Hershiser will walk off with the coveted, handsome, diamond-encrusted Rolex egg timer.”

Golf and tennis have become like give-away game shows. I don’t know why. Certainly not because they are boring sports that otherwise would have trouble enticing TV viewers away from televised bass fishing tournaments.

On the contrary, it’s fascinating to watch a golf tournament, to see the cameras pan the sky searching for a dust-speck of a ball that is hurtling through the ozone at 600 m.p.h. If I was playing in one of those tournaments, I’d whiff my tee shot on purpose just to see the frantic cameramen trying to locate it.

Once I was watching a golf tournament on TV and I thought I saw the ball in flight, although it might have actually been a dust speck on the camera lens, or on my TV screen.

Probably it was the latter, because it was still there when I switched the dial to the $8-zillion World Series Super Bowl Classic of Bass Fishing.