The inaugural Skechers World Champions Cup was held two years ago, and, according to seven-time PGA Tour winner and current PGA Tour Champions player Peter Jacobsen, who happens to be the event's chairman, everybody loved it. Everybody except the two hurricanes that ripped through Bradenton, Florida, the spring following the first playing of the tournament. You can never trust hurricanes to do the right thing.
The horrific weather caused the cancellation of the tournament last year, while everybody in the area cleaned up and rebuilt. But there’s no giving up in this group. They're back!
“We are now at Feather Sound Country Club in Clearwater, Florida, and Skechers is our title sponsor, and we are so excited,” said Jacobsen in an interview on The Golf Show 2.0. “We don't have a Ryder Cup for seniors, and this was kind of the next best thing.”
According to Jacobsen, the idea for doing this kind of event is something he worked on for several years with Intersport founder Charles Besser, whom Jacobsen calls Charlie.
“The one thing we tried to do was we wanted to include all three teams,” Jacobsen explained. “We have U.S. versus Europe in the Ryder Cup, and the Presidents Cup is U.S. versus the world or U.S. versus International. So, Charlie and I came up with a way to have all three teams playing together.”
It’s simple, but it’s complicated. And according to a comment made by U.S. team captain Jim Furyk, it’s also fun.
The teams play in sixsomes, two from each team. They play a match of best ball, where the low-scoring team on each hole gets two points, the second-lowest score on the hole gets one point, and the highest score for a hole gets zero. Then they play and score the same way for modified alternate shot and for singles. At the end of Sunday, they add up everything and see who has the most points.
Last time around, it was very close. The U.S. was behind on Sunday and managed to win a point or two coming down the stretch in singles to take the title.
In addition to Furyk as U.S. captain, Mike Weir is International captain, and Darren Clarke is European captain. All three captains play. All are major winners with Furyk holding a U.S. Open title, Weir being a former Masters champ, and Clarke winning a British Open.
The U.S. team includes Steve Stricker, Justin Leonard, Stewart Cink, Jerry Kelly, and Jason Caron, with non-playing assistant captains Billy Andrade and Steve Flesch.
The International team includes Weir plus Ricardo Gonzalez, Charlie Wi, Steven Alker, Angel Cabrera, K.J. Choi, Mark Hensby, and Y.E. Yang, with non-playing assistant captains Ricardo Gonzalez and Charlie Wi.
The European team is headed by Clarke and will include Thomas Bjorn, Alex Cjeka, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Bernhard Langer, and Colin Montgomerie, with non-playing assistant captains Soren Kjeldsen and Jesper Parnevik.
Matches are contested over nine holes.
“There's always three balls in play,” Jacobsen explained. “It's fun. It's interesting. It's different. I'm a huge fan of the game of golf creating new events with new formats.”
The tournament dates are December 4-7, 2025, and will be televised on ESPN and ABC.