Final Putt Gets Watson Out of Hole : Golf: He sinks key shot in Skins Game playoff and finishes with $210,000 total on a day when the greens prove especially tricky for all four players.

Tom Watson has a great sense of timing, which is nothing short of a good thing in the Skins Game.

It’s a simple concept. If you’re going to make one putt, you might as well be sure it’s the one that is going to make you rich.

This Watsonian principal was worth $160,000 to the 45-year-old redhead, who coaxed a right-to-left downhill putt to drop on the first playoff hole to win the Skins Game on Sunday at Bighorn Golf Club.

Watson added the $160,000 to the $50,000 he won Saturday on the front nine and finished with $210,000 to notch a victory by a small margin--the width of his wallet.

Fred Couples was second with $170,000, all of it earned on one hole. Couples nudged a four-footer in the hole at No. 14 for a birdie that was worth five skins, four of them carried over.

“I kind of shook it in,” Couples said of his putt.

With a shake, a rattle and a roll, Watson, Couples, Paul Azinger and Payne Stewart spent most of the morning pushing golf balls around the greens.

As a whole, they couldn’t buy a putt. They couldn’t even rent one. There just weren’t many great putts rolling in.

“I don’t think anyone looked real confident with the putter out there,” Watson said.

“You get a little nervous when you’re putting for $100,000. That money does get your attention.”

Until the playoff, Watson might as well have been swinging a cactus instead of a putter. He missed birdie putts of 15 feet at No. 11, six feet at No. 12, six feet at No. 14 and 20 feet on his first trip to No. 18.

“I don’t think there was a putt really made all day until Tom’s,” Couples said. “That’s kind of hard to believe.”

Watson rolled in his money-maker from near the same spot on the green he had the first time. That meant Couples had to make his 16-footer for birdie to tie Watson.

But Couples missed slightly to the right and Watson got richer in a hurry, bagging the last four skins.

Stewart and Azinger, the leaders after the first day, got shut out. Stewart kept busy hitting a ball in the sand while straddling a bush or knocking another one into the water.

“I played very poorly today,” he said.

Azinger could have saved his day if he had been able to make a simple six-footer at No. 13, worth $130,000. He sent it left, though, which enabled Couples to clean up at No. 14.

“It was purely nerves to miss that putt,” Azinger said.

Couples probably has the best chances to win the money race. His chip on No. 17, a $120,000 skin, spun around the hole and rimmed out.

Couples groaned, then tossed his sand wedge into the water. Couples said he threw it carefully, though.

“I didn’t throw it very far out there,” he said.

Then on No. 18, Couples sent a birdie putt inches left and the playoff was on. “We all had our chances,” Couples said.

Watson finished with six skins, Couples with five, Azinger four for $80,000 and Stewart three for $80,000.

Watson didn’t exactly have a banner year, but he felt good enough Sunday to poke a little fun at himself.

“This isn’t the icing on the cake, it’s just the icing,” he said.