The Challenge: Japan Skins, Tiger Woods stays Winless

Jason Day was able to take down Tiger Woods and the other competitors in the new event labeled The Challenge: Japan Skins.

The mood throughout the entire day was light, and it made for quite an enjoyable experience. Jason Day came through over Tiger Woods, Hideki Matsuyama, and Rory McIlroy to win The Challenge: Japan Skins, finishing with eight skins and a cool $210,000.

The skins events used to be much more commonplace on the PGA Tour, taking place around Thanksgiving every year. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson played their highly anticipated “The Match” last year, although it doesn’t seem like it has been 11 months since it took place.

With four players in The Challenge: Japan Skins, it made for a much more viewer-friendly experience. When Tiger and Phil played, it got awkward at times. There was a lot of downtime and no matter how close you are with someone, there are going to be plenty of quiet moments over 18 holes when it is just two golfers.

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Not only did the Japan Skins double the number of golfers, but they made sure to get interesting golfers and ones that are fun to watch. Jason Day, Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods, and Hideki Matsuyama all made for great choices to take part in the event.

Unfortunately, like the match between Tiger and Phil, this one ended in darkness as well. Heading into the 18th, the last hole was worth $100,000. This meant that it was anyone’s match, with all the golfers close enough in winnings so far. Jason Day had won seven skins for $110,000, Tiger Woods had won four skins for $60,000, Rory was at $60,000 for five skins, and Matsuyama had won $20,000 on his single skin.

Standing over a ten-footer, Tiger Woods left it way short under cover of darkness, and Jason Day was able to win the hole. You have to imagine that if they were still playing in daylight, Tiger would’ve hit the putt much closer, as it isn’t often you see him leave a ten-footer over a foot short. Day ended up taking the last hole.

That means Jason Day won the Japan Skins event, finishing with eight skins and $210,000. He also kept Tiger Woods winless in his career playing skins events, dropping to 0 for 7.

Hopefully, the PGA Tour takes note of how well this event did and starts to schedule them more regularly going forward. It is a nice change of pace, and likely changes it up enough for the pros to break up the monotony of an 11-month season.

The only real downside to this was the time of day. As the Japan Skins happened in Japan, it was difficult for anyone in the States to watch. Understandable though, as it was played in Japan to help build excitement for the upcoming event.

Next. PGA Tour: Justin Thomas wins CJ Cup at Nine Bridges. dark

All four of them will stay in Japan, as they will be playing in the first PGA Tour event to take place in Japan, the Zozo Championship.

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