Last month, we reported the exciting news that The Skins Game is returning after a 15-year hiatus. This edition is produced by Pro Shop and Propagate Content in collaboration with PGA Tour Studios. The 9 a.m. ET Black Friday event will be broadcast on Prime Video and features Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry, Xander Schauffele, and Keegan Bradley competing at Panther National in Florida, a new course co-designed by Jack Nicklaus and Justin Thomas.
With the November 28 competition right around the corner, we spoke with Pro Shop’s Co-Founder and President, Chad Mumm, about The Skins Game’s triumphant return. In addition to his many other duties, Mumm is an executive producer of the event. Enjoy the conversation below.
GolfWRX: When did you first get the idea, “We should bring back The Skins Game”? Was there a specific moment that lit the spark for you?
Chad Mumm: When I was growing up, the only golf that was ever on in our house was the Masters and The Skins Game. Watching The Skins Game on Thanksgiving weekend was a huge part of my early golf life and has always been something that I’ve missed since it’s been off the air. After Full Swing’s initial success, the first thing I asked the PGA Tour about was, “Could we bring back The Skins Game?” So this is really the result of three-plus years of work and planning to get it back on the air on an amazing network (Amazon Prime) and on Thanksgiving weekend.
GolfWRX: What did The Skins Game mean to you growing up as a golf fan? Any particular year or player that’s burned into your memory?
CM: I vividly remember watching the 1996 Skins Game with Tiger Woods and John Daly hammering drives over 350 yards in front of thousands of people out in the desert, and I was hooked. Other than Tiger, watching Fred Couples clean up at The Skins Game with his silky swing was everything I wanted a golfer to be.
GolfWRX: Did you talk to any of the original Skins Game legends or past producers for advice or stories while you were developing this?
CM: I’ve been lucky enough to have had conversations with several of the people involved with the original Skins Game, including Paul Spengler and the family of the original producer, the late Don Ohlmeyer. It’s hugely important to me for our reboot of the franchise to live up to what they invented and perfected in the ’80s and ’90s.
GolfWRX: The original Skins Game had this mix of big money, trash talk, and a relaxed vibe. Can we expect all of the same this time around?
CM: We definitely want to capture the same ethos: our players are all big personalities, they will be miked up the whole time, and they are playing for a big pot of money ($4 million) that is going to create very dramatic moments where a player has 7-figures or more riding on a putt. Beyond the structure of the gameplay, we are trying to bring a very classic approach to the broadcast production as well. That means players will be walking the course with caddies, we have hours and hours of archival footage from past Skins Games we will be integrating, and we will have some of the most legendary Skins Game participants included in the show. We’re even taking a throwback vibe with the music and the graphics that I think fans of the original Skins Game will have a ton of fun with. It should scratch the itch, for sure.
GolfWRX: The “reverse purse” idea, with starting players at $1 million and having totals move up or down, where did that come from, and what do you hope it does for drama?
CM: The most notable new element we are bringing to the classic Skins Game is this notion of the reverse purse, which came out of a conversation that I had with a player competing in this Skins Game about how to create more stakes in the moment for the guys out on the course. We think the twist of having the players each starting with $1 million and having their totals go up and down as Skins are won and lost will make the pressure in the moment feel even more tangible than it would with them all starting at zero.
GolfWRX: How much did you think about making the format easier for casual or new golf fans to understand versus keeping it pure for golf sickos?
CM: The great thing about a Skins Game is it’s really easy to follow on television. Each hole has a fixed dollar amount, a tie on a hole means the money carries over, and since it’s an individual competition with four players, the game creates a fun dynamic of shifting alliances as players become friends and then rivals on a hole-by-hole basis. And there’s not much more exciting than seeing a putt for a huge amount of money, even in this era of pro golf with its enormous purses.
GolfWRX: You landed a field of four Ryder Cup-level stars for the comeback edition. What did those early conversations with players sound like?
CM: Everybody was excited to see The Skins Game coming back, probably Keegan Bradley most of all (which I think says something about how meaningful it is to our generation, as he and I are the same age). We hand-picked the players, but after the Ryder Cup, it took on a life of its own in terms of the subtext for the match between Keegan, Xander, Shane, and Tommy.
GolfWRX: Why Panther National, and what made it the right stage for the reboot?
CM: Our time slot (9 am ET) as the lead-in to Amazon’s NFL Black Friday game meant that we had to find an East Coast venue, and I couldn’t be more excited about hosting it at Panther National. It’s a perfect host venue for this event, with plenty of risk/reward opportunities, and it is a course that very few people in the public have ever seen before. We think it’s going to really show off. It’s built into these wild dunes and has a lot more elevation than you would expect in Florida, and it can play really firm and fast.
GolfWRX: What does success look like for you beyond ratings? Social buzz, younger demo engagement, international reach?
CM: Above all, we want to do right by the legacy of the original Skins Game. This is an iconic franchise that we have the honor of bringing back, and we want to be good stewards of the history while bringing it into the present day. Success to us is that golf fans all over the world tune in and enjoy some great, high-stakes competition on a holiday with their family and friends, and we begin a new tradition that carries on into the future.
Editor’s note: In more recent Skins Game news, it was announced host Andrew Catalon, on-course
analyst Colt Knost, and on-course reporter Dan Rapaport will be the on-air team for the broadcast. Capital One was announced as the entitlement sponsor.
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