Course Demands Victory by Skins of Your Teeth

You might think a golf tournament, even the Skins game that is being played down here this week, is a contest between Jack Nicklaus and Curtis Strange or Raymond Floyd vs. Lee Trevino. It’s not. And they all know who the opponent is. It’s a 7,261-yard hall of horrors that looks like a moonscape with railroad ties, a treeless moor in the desert they chased all the rattlesnakes off and picked up all the bleached skulls and grew grass and cut holes.

It is the Jack the Ripper of golf courses, less a course than a curse. If it were human, it would have teeth missing and a scar in its cheek and maybe an earring in its ear and a scowl on its face. It would have done time in Leavenworth. It is as antisocial as a street mugger. It is relentless in its punishment, it treats all who walk it as transgressors. It doesn’t even read them their rights.

PGA West is the toughest golf course in the nation, maybe the planet. Don’t take our word for it. It was so voted ay a panel from Golf Magazine, and Jack Nicklaus, who has played golf most places in the world (winner of three British Opens, six Australian Opens) concurs. For the golfer it is a midnight tour through Dracula’s castle, four hours of silent screaming. It is so intimidating, the tour players mutinied when they put the Hope Classic on it two years ago and they voted they would rather spend two weeks in a cold shower than play 36 holes on its implacable acreage. You don’t play golf here, you suffer it. It was built by Pete Dye, who couldn’t seem to make up his mind whether he was building a golf course or the Pennsylvania Railroad. You keep expecting a train whistle, you’re tempted to ask what time is the next Amtrak, or “What time does this green get to San Francisco?”

But it’s perfect for a Skins Game.

You see, a Skins Game is not a golf tournament--it’s 18 of them. First of all, it’s the only golf game in the world that pays by the hole. You have to play at least 72 holes to make money in the average tournament. Here, there’s a pay window at every pin.

This changes considerably the way you play the game, the way you attack the hole.

You take the fifth hole on this golf course. A nice, medium-long par-five with a narrow teeing area, water on the left and a lake protecting the part of the green with the pin in it. Jack Nicklaus knows how to play a hole such as this. He’s won 72 tournaments knowing how to play holes such as this. He’s made almost as much money out of 530-yard par-fives as some sheiks out of oil.

What Nicklaus does with a hole such as this in, say the Masters or a British Open, is, slide a little three-wood out there safely to the right, hammer a one-iron up in front of the green, chip up and make the putt for a birdie, or, at least, a sure par.

But, a Skins Game is no place to say “I’ll play these.” It’s where you say “Hit me “ or “I’ll see your 10 and 10 more.” You go for the moon. Play it as if the next card is sure to be an ace.

Nicklaus didn’t get to be the world’s greatest golfer by betting longshots or taking the way to the hole with the most danger in it. Nicklaus probably hasn’t hit nine balls in the water in his career. The Pacific Ocean is safe from him. You may find Arnold Palmer and a seal standing over a shot on a rock in Monterey Bay, but he is up there on the short grass. He doesn’t try to cut the dogleg if there’s a high percentage of splash.

But Nicklaus splashed a tee shot on the fifth hole in the first half of the Skins Game at PGA West Saturday. He’s not getting reckless in his old age. He hasn’t changed. The game has. It’s the nature of this contest. “I never hit a ball in the water there if it’s a regular tournament,” Nicklaus admits. “But, you see, this format encourages incaution, aggression. You figure, in a regular tournament, you’re going to throw away two shots there. But, here, you figure somebody is going to tie the hole for you. If you make the shot, you make birdie, maybe eagle. If you miss the shot, no penalty. The hole will be tied and you will go on to the next with a carryover.”

Raymond Floyd, as canny a player as Nicklaus in ordinary tournament play, a veteran who can compute the odds with a glance, took the same plunge. So did his ball. Raymond, with a good (dry) drive, dared the water on his second shot. It did a Greg Louganis. It went in the water with backspin. If it keeps aloft, he’s putting for an eagle. Wet, he’s looking at bogey.

The name of the hole on the scorecard is, fittingly, “Double Trouble.” For Raymond and Nicklaus, it was prophetically dubbed.

For Curtis Strange, it should have been titled “At last!”

Curtis Strange is a curious case in this tournament. Tapped last year to join the legends of the game because his 17 tour victories--and two majors--stamp him as the potential new king of the game, Strange came up blank last year.

Fifteen years younger than Nicklaus or Lee Trevino, 13 years younger than Floyd, there was some concern he would run away with and heist this contest as the only guy in the field who for sure didn’t need bifocals over the putts.

Strange saw Floyd make $290,000, Nicklaus $125,000 and Trevino $35,000. Strange got a ride home.

Strange is not a man who suffers disappointment with a shrug. But, for four holes Saturday, he was still on his personal schneid. Nicklaus had already pocketed $15,000 by winning the first hole. There was, therefore, $60,000 at stake on the fifth hole.

When Nicklaus hit his tee shot in the water, Strange took out the game he plays best, the patience game. He slapped his second shot safely up in front of the green. When he saw Floyd’s try for a flush bust, he had only Trevino. When Trevino missed a 17-foot putt, Strange had a six-footer for his first-ever skins in two years. He sank it--and stood with his arms raised in the air like a guy who has just been cut off a noose. But it took uncustomary play from two guys who ordinarily moisten a ball only in a tee washer to bring it off. Strange got his 60 grand because the other balls lay on the bottom like a couple of sunk Spanish galleons.

It’s what makes a Skins Game a new dimension in golf. There are no holes at which you merely defend yourself or try to smuggle your lead in the clubhouse. On the toughest track in the world-or at least the hemisphere--you have to play spit-in-the-ocean golf, try for the wild card. On a course that was built for bogeys, you have to fly for eagles. It’s high wire golf, more fun than watching a guy just parring in for all the money. It’s like watching a guy knock a chip off the shoulder of Hulk Hogan.