The Skin Game Behind the Skins Game

Amid all the football on television over this holiday weekend will be one of the most popular golf events of the year--the made-for-TV Skins Game on ABC Saturday and Sunday from Rancho La Quinta Country Club in La Quinta.

A lineup of Fred Couples, John Daly, Tom Watson and Tiger Woods guarantees a ratings winner, as usual. It will also be a money winner for the competitors since there is a $540,000 purse. And the producers of the event, OCC, formerly Ohlmeyer Communications Co., and Trans World International, the television arm of International Management Group (IMG), will do OK too.

TWI has been involved in the Skins Game and its offshoots, the Seniors Skins Game and the LPGA Skins Game since the beginning, ever since Don Ohlmeyer, recognized as the creator of the event, brought his idea to TWI senior vice president Barry Frank in 1983.

The first televised Skins Game was played that year, with Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Tom Watson competing.

Golfers have been playing for skins, or dollars, on a per-hole basis almost since the game was invented. All Ohlmeyer did was use the format to create a television event. But was it really Ohlmeyer’s idea?

Bob Halloran, the head of sports for the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, says no.

“It was my idea, and Don stole it from me,” said Halloran, a former CBS announcer and golf commentator who was the head of sports for Ceasars World before moving on to the Mirage a few years ago.

Halloran said he first got Jack Nicklaus to back the idea, then lined up Watson, Isao Oaiki, Seve Ballesteros and Lee Trevino to join Nicklaus--yes, a fivesome--to play a Skins Game in 1982.

He pitched his idea to Ohlmeyer, who was then the executive producer of NBC Sports.

“I made the pitch during a round of golf at Bel-Air,” Halloran said.

Ohlmeyer, who rejected Halloran’s idea, left NBC the next year and formed his own company, the Beverly Hills-based Ohlmeyer Communications Co. (OCC). Soon after that, he went to Frank and TWI with his idea of putting a Skins Game on television.

Halloran didn’t take it lightly. He sued and got an out-of-court settlement.

“It was a pretty good settlement--that’s all I can tell you--but needless to say I would have rather owned a piece of the Skins Game,” Halloran said.

Ohlmeyer sold his company, now known simply as OCC, to ESPN in 1993 when he became the West Coast president of NBC. OCC, in conjunction with TWI, produces the Skins Game, but Ohlmeyer is no longer involved.

He calls Halloran’s legal action a “nuisance suit.”

“The insurance company settled because it would have cost too much to litigate,” Ohlmeyer said. “To say I stole the idea of a Skins Game is ludicrous. It’s been around for 100 years. I didn’t invent it. It would be like saying I invented baseball.

“Did Bob Halloran buy the television time, handle the production, sell the advertising and take the risk? Hardly. The first Skins Game lost a million dollars.

“Halloran didn’t have a case. He never would have won had it gone to court. In a deposition, Jack Nicklaus said he didn’t even know who Bob Halloran is.

“This is really a non-story.”

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Ohlmeyer made news on another front this week during a lively conference call with television reporters. He touched on a number of topics, and one of them was about efforts to revise NBC’s deal with major league baseball, which Ohlmeyer has criticized in the past. “You basically feel like you’re in business with people who are mentally challenged,” he said.

Later, Ohlmeyer, talking about baseball’s labor troubles and Albert Belle’s $55-million contract with the Chicago White Sox, said, “You’ve got a lot of people with lobotomies who are running this sport.”

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The Skins Game will be on ABC at 12:30 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday. The announcing team will be Vin Scully, Mark Rolfing and newcomer Curtis Strange, who has been hired to work most of ABC’s golf events, including ones that he is playing in.

He was supposed to start out with last month’s Tour Championship, but dropped out at the last minute when he was told he couldn’t wear anything that had a Titleist logo. He is under contract to Titleist, and felt obligated to do so. Titleist has since told him that isn’t necessary.

Strange has played in four Skins Games and has won $605,000, fifth on the Skins Game money list. In 1990, he had a record eight birdies.

However, Strange was shut out in his first Skins Game, when he played with Raymond Floyd, Nicklaus and Lee Trevino. He admitted it was nerve-racking and intimidating.

“But Tiger won’t be shut out,” Strange said. “I think the matchup everybody wants to see is Tiger and John Daly. I know I’m anxious to see who is longer.”

TV-Radio Notes

CBS, with its economy package of Southeastern Conference and Big East games, is getting killed in its college football battle with ABC. Today, ABC has Colorado-Nebraska at 11:30 a.m., while CBS has Virginia-Virginia Tech. On Saturday, CBS has a good one in Miami-Syracuse at 12:30 p.m., but ABC has the game of the year, No. 1 Florida vs. No. 2 Florida State, at 9 a.m. And Miami-Syracuse has to compete with the Skins Game on ABC. . . . CBS doesn’t even have the SEC championship between Florida and Alabama on Dec. 7. That’s an ABC game. . . . CBS brought in college football expert Mike Aresco, formerly of ESPN, at the start of the season to improve things the best he can, but CBS is locked into its SEC-Big East package through the year 2000.

Brent Musburger and Dick Vermeil, who are in Lincoln, Neb., for today’s Colorado-Nebraska game, will be the announcers for the Notre Dame-USC game on ABC Saturday at 5 p.m. . . . Thank goodness it’s not Mark Jones and John Spagnola, who turned in another amateurish performance in announcing USC-UCLA.

Former Channel 4 sportscaster Bret Lewis has returned to Los Angeles after a stint in New York as a producer on the syndicated “In Person With Maureen O’Boyle” show. Lewis did the 10 p.m. sports for Channel 11 Thursday night on a fill-in basis and he’ll be doing a Laker call-in show for radio station KLAC following road games.

Los Angeles’ Andre Aldridge has been hired as an anchor for ESPNEWS. He begins Monday. . . . ESPN will televise the Crown Royal Hollywood Derby and the Matriach from Hollywood Park Sunday, beginning at 3 p.m. Post time for the Derby is 3:12 p.m., and it is 3:42 for the Matriach. . . . Too bad Wednesday night’s TBS telecast of Wednesday night’s Miami-Clipper game was blacked out in most of Los Angeles since Cheryl Miller worked it to become the first woman analyst on a national network NBA telecast.

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What Los Angeles Is Watching

A sampling of L.A. Nielsen ratings for sports programs Nov. 23-25.

SATURDAY

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Event Ch. Rating Share College Football: USC-UCLA 7 10.4 27 Figure Skating: Gold Championship 4 8.7 15 College Football: Michigan-Ohio State 7 5.2 15 Figure Skating: Skate International of France 11 3.2 8 College Football: Rutgers-Notre Dame 4 3.0 9 College Football: Boston College-Miami 2 1.7 5 College Football: Kentucky-Tennessee 2 1.5 4 Golf: World Cup of Golf 4 1.6 4 Hockey: Mighty Ducks-San Jose 9 0.7 1

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SUNDAY

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Event Ch. Rating Share NFL: Dallas-New York Giants 11 14.4 35 NFL: San Francisco-Washington 11 12.0 30 NFL: Denver-Minnesota 4 6.7 16 Golf: World Cup of Golf 4 1.5 40 Women’s Tennis: Chase Championships 7 1.6 4 Golf: LPGA Tour Championship 7 1.0 2 Hockey: Detroit-Mighty Ducks 9 1.0 2

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MONDAY

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Event Ch. Rating Share NFL: Pittsburgh-Miami 7 19.3 29

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Note: Each rating point represents 49,424 L.A. households.