Associated Press
Friday, November 24

INDIO, Calif. -- It's no wonder Vijay Singh hopes to follow Fred Couples' formula for the Skins Game.

Couples, who holds most of the records for the event, has earned nearly $2 million for playing what works out to seven rounds of golf.

"I just want to do what Fred has done the last 10 years, win a lot of skins and leave town," Singh said with a laugh.

Couples has played in the four-man event for only seven years, but he has won a record 52 skins and made almost three times as much money as any of the others who have played in the event that began in 1983.

"Freddie is the king of the Skins Game. He seems to play it very well," Sergio Garcia said.

This weekend's $1 million Skins Game at Landmark Golf Club has a Couples-against-the-world flavor.

Singh, the Masters champion, is from Fiji. Garcia, the 20-year-old who is one of the few players to beat Tiger Woods at anything this year -- in their $1 million match at nearby Bighorn -- is from Spain. The other member of the foursome is Colin Montgomerie, the Scot who is one of Europe's finest players and a three-time runner-up in majors in America.

Singh and Montgomerie are Skins Game rookies, while Garcia won two holes and $120,000 in his debut in the two-day, 18-hole event last year.

"I think being the only American, people will rally around me for that reason," Couples said. "But it's still a golf event and it doesn't matter where you're from."

Couples is only $24,500 shy of the $2 million mark in the Skins Game, so needs to win only one hole to top that plateau.

While Couples has dominated the Skins Game, winning three times and finishing second three others since he first played in 1992, his victories haven't always been things of beauty.

He has shown a knack for flailing away at times during the tournament, then coming up with good shots at just the right time.

A year ago at Landmark, he sprayed shots into the rocks and sand. With $410,000 and the title on the line at No. 18, Couples pulled his drive off the fairway and into a shrub. But he poked a recovery shot into the fairway, knocked his 4-iron 15 feet from the pin, then rolled in the putt to win it all, as Garcia missed a 10-foot birdie try.

"I won a few holes and I hit a few horrible shots," Couples said. "That's the whole gist of what I do in the Skins Game. A lot of times you're in a tournament and you play a bad hole and it affects you a little.

"In the Skins Game, it doesn't affect me at all because I know you have to regroup for the next hole. I am able to win a hole after playing a horrendous one."

He wound up the 1999 event with a record $635,000 total, with No. 18 the richest single hole ever in the Skins Game.

Players seem to like the format.

"Last year, I had fun, although Freddie stole some skins from me on the last few holes," Garcia said.

Said Singh: "You can be more aggressive than normal, which is good for me, and I think it is also good for the other players. So it should be a lot of fun."

Montgomerie never has played in a Skins Game format.

"I tend to make more pars than most people," he said. "I'm not an `eagle expert' like some people. But you never know in these events; I may go in as an underdog and win it."

In the Skins Game, prize money is at stake on each hole. A player wins the money if he wins the hole (the skin) outright. But if two or more players tie a hole, all are considered tied and the money is carried over to the next hole, with the pot building until one player wins a hole.

The first six holes are worth $25,000 each, the next six worth $50,000 each, and Nos. 13-17 worth $70,000 each, leading to a $200,000 "super skin" at No. 18.