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Fred Couples will make his Champions Tour debut in the Champions Skins Game

Having turned 50 last month, Fred Couples will make his Champions Tour debut in the Champions Skins Game in Hawaii in January.

The “King of the Skins” will join a Hall of Fame cast including Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Gary Player, Ben Crenshaw and Nick Price from Jan. 16-17.

While the original Skins Game has been canceled, the 50-and-older version lives on in paradise at Royal Kaanapali. The total purse is 0,000, and it features two-man teams playing alternate shot.

Couples turned the now-defunct Skins Game into an annuity. He played 14 times and earned .183 million. In 585 official events on the PGA Tour, he made .319 million.

Couples was born in Seattle, Washington, to Tom and Violet (Sobich) Couples. Fred’s paternal grandparents had immigrated from Italy, and changed the family name from “Copolla” to “Couples” to make it sound less Italian. His mother is of Croatian descent. His father was a groundskeeper for the Seattle Parks Department and the family, which included brother Tom, Jr., and sister Cindy, lived in a modest house on Beacon Hill. Nearby was the city’s Jefferson Park golf course; here Fred developed his signature loose, rhythmic swing in order to gain enough distance to keep up with the older kids. Couples attended O’Dea High School in Seattle and the University of Houston, where, as a member of the Houston Cougars men’s golf team, he roomed with Blaine McCallister, another future PGA Tour player, and future CBS television broadcaster Jim Nantz. His first PGA Tour victory came at the 1983 Kemper Open. He has amassed 15 total PGA Tour victories, including the The Players Championship twice (in 1984 and 1996) and one major victory, The Masters Tournament in 1992.

Couples has been named the PGA Tour Player of the Year twice, in 1991 and 1992. He also won the Vardon Trophy for lowest scoring average each of those years. He has been named to the United States Ryder Cup team five times (1989, 1991, 1993, 1995 and 1997).

“I could not think of a better way for me, personally, to start on the Champions Tour than to play in this format and have the chance to hang out with this group of players,” said Couples, who will be paired with Price.

Fuzzy Zoeller and Crenshaw will try to become the first team to repeat in the Champions Skins Game, and Zoeller will be going for his third straight title; he played with Peter Jacobsen in 2007.

Nicklaus and Watson will be teammates…

Tags: PGA Tour //