Golf had been missing a sense of spontaneity lately. The kind where a drive shot feels bigger than actually winning the game. Where the stakes are so high that players can’t just be there for the sake of it, you know. And so, for that matter, The Skins Game is back. The crown of the old “silly season” of golf, which made TV watching during Thanksgiving like a mini-major run. But this time, the show has some major twists imbued, and Justin Thomas, who is personally involved, can’t stop gushing about it.

Thomas will be the host and one of the competitors on The Skins Game, which is set to be broadcast on Amazon Prime on November 28th. Speaking on The Drop, a show by the PGA Tour, Thomas could not hide his excitement.

“I’m excited. (The younger generation) didn’t get to watch too many of these live,” he said. “We’re probably catching the end of them. So, obviously, being a golf fan, to know all about them and know how iconic they were to the game of golf. The players they got to play. It was incredible. The places they got to play.”

“I think it’s, it’s kind of—in this day and age, it seems like it fits the mold pretty well of what fans want and the type of access that they’ll have. The excitement, the mic’d up and all that kind of stuff… It’s going to be cool, especially being part of it,” Thomas added. Interestingly, he is the co-designer of the course, as well, alongside Jack Nicklaus.

Speaking of the course, it will play its part in making the game more challenging. If one measures it, Panther National stretches to nearly 8,000 yards, with all four par 5s exceeding 575 yards. This includes the dangerous 654-yard 11th as well. The par 3s don’t offer much respite either, as three of them measure 230 yards or more, as reported by Skratch.

“It offers a variety of options,” Thomas explained. “You have some risk-reward holes, some getable, easy birdie holes, and then you have some that are going to play very difficult and very long.”

But as the course imparts its duty in making the game “very difficult,” there is also an update in the format of the game. To turn more heads and bring significant viewership, The Skins Game will follow a “reverse-purse” format. What it means is that each player will begin the match with a $1 million bankroll. But their total will keep fluctuating as per the result on each hole.

And for the same reason – to lock the players in, the show will be paying zero appearance fees to those contesting. “We’re paying no appearance fees,” said Chad Mumm, co-founder and president of Pro Shop, which co-created the event. “They’ve [the players] been paid appearance fees… it just feels like the guys are maybe going through the motions a little bit. So, we wanted to find a way to make it feel actually competitive.”

This fresh approach is, in many ways, an attempt to correct the missteps of the past. Back in 2009, dwindling viewership had forced sponsors to pull the plug on the Skins Game altogether. Later, the Match series tried to recapture that magic, but it too struggled to hold an audience. Its numbers fell from 5.8 million viewers in 2018 to just over half a million by 2024.

This time, though, the strategy is different. By cutting out costly appearance fees, the risk is lower. The real responsibility now lies with the players themselves to bring the energy and make the competition worth watching.

Justin Thomas, for once, is excited about that too. “Obviously, excited in the competitive side to try to beat all of them [competitors].”

But who are his competitors?

It’s Ryder Cup all over again

The Skins Game is going to help settle some scores as major names from this year’s Ryder Cup will be seen teeing off at the newly set-up course. Apart from Justin Thomas, the roster is going to have Xander Schauffele, Keegan Bradley, and Tommy Fleetwood in the mix. Between them, the four have collected 34 PGA Tour victories and five major championships, and that makes the competition more promising and high.

Thomas, currently ranked seventh in the world, will enter with a RBC Heritage win on his resume. Partnering with him will be Schauffele, world No. 3 with a strong Ryder Cup performance (3-1-0).

On the other side, Bradley comes off fresh after captaining Team USA in Bethpage Black. He, too, has one victory in his name, at the Travelers Championship. Alongside him will be the sole European and Ryder Cup hero, Fleetwood. Enjoying his career high rank of 5th, he too had a historic season (cracking his first PGA Tour win).

Moreover, a layer of drama can potentially be seen between him and Thomas as the two last faced off in singles at the Ryder Cup. Thomas was the one who handed Fleetwood his only loss of the week, a narrow 1-up defeat that ended the Englishman’s near-perfect 4–1–0 record.