It’s Fun, but No One Wants to Be Skinned : Golf: Couples, Kite, Stewart and Norman play for pride and big bucks at Bighorn.

The 10th annual Skins Game that begins today at Bighorn Golf Club is ostensibly a lot of fun for the players and spectators.

Players joke or needle one another between shots, and their comments are heard on television, unlike a regular tournament that is all business for the players.

Nonetheless, despite the easygoing format, there is a pride factor involved.

Tom Kite, the U.S. Open champion; Fred Couples, the Masters champion; Payne Stewart, the 1991 Skins winner, and Greg Norman are the participants this year.

The total purse is $540,000, with nine holes being played today and nine on Sunday.

Here’s how the skins break down: $20,000 on each of the first six holes, $30,000 for the middle six and $40,000 for the last six.

“To a certain extent it’s very similar to what we had at the Grand Slam,” said Kite, referring to the four-man, 36-hole competition held earlier this month at nearby PGA West.

“Yes, it will be a fun event. (But) I can assure you that every one of of the four players has two things in their mind: One, they would love to win. More important than that is not to be shut out and, in an 18-hole competition, if you’re not quite right on your game, there’s a possibility that you can be shut out because of the caliber of players that are playing.

“Like the Grand Slam, no one wanted to finish last. Pride will come to the fore, I can assure you. There will be some great golf shots.”

Kite is playing in his first Skins Game, as is Couples.

Kite has made California his temporary home this month. He lost in a playoff to Nick Price in the PGA Grand Slam after shooting a 62 on the final day, then, last Sunday, he and his partner, Davis Love III, won the Shark Shootout at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks.

Stewart, the 1991 U.S. Open champion, won last year’s Skins Game at the Stadium course at PGA West by winning only one hole. His three-foot birdie putt on the 14th hole was worth $260,000, a carry-over of eight skins, and the most money won on one hole in the history of the competition.

However, 1992 hasn’t been especially rewarding. Stewart finished 44th on the PGA Tour money list without winning a tournament.

“My season was one of the worst ones I’ve had,” he said. “After winning the Open in ’91 and coming out with the intention of having an extremely good season, it was a big letdown.

“There were probably a number of circumstances that created that letdown, trying to live up to the status of being the United States Open champion.

“I structured some things in my life that could make me even a better player than I was in 1991 and none of those things that I did helped.

“At end of the season, I went back to being Payne Stewart again and saw some nice results. I think ’93 will be a very exciting year for me and ’92 can’t get over quick enough.”

Because Kite is the defending Open champion, he was asked if he will try to avoid the same circumstances that hampered Stewart.

“All of a sudden, you have an image of being the U.S. Open champion and what it’s supposed to be,” Kite said. “You decide to become better than what you’ve been. The thing is, when Payne is good enough, it’s good enough. When he’s playing well, that’s good enough to win golf tournaments.

“I think he went on an exercise program and became kind of regimented, which isn’t typical Payne Stewart, and it affected him.

“I’ve said the one goal I have after winning the U.S. Open is not to think. I was happy with Tom Kite before I won the Open. The main thing is to make sure my family still comes No. 1 and golf No. 2 and I’ll keep taking care of business the way I did before.”

This is the first year that Jack Nicklaus isn’t in the competition. Asked to comment on Nicklaus’ absence, Stewart said:

“I think people will miss Jack because he’s the best. Then again, Jack is playing in the Senior Skins. We’ll miss him, but we owe a lot of gratitude to him for taking the Skins Game to the level it is now.”

Kite agreed. “We’ll miss Jack,” he said. “It’s getting to the point now with his back being in such poor condition he’s not really able to play up to the standards that he had set throughout so many years. Like everybody’s heroes, you like to remember them at their best.”

In the Skins format, if two or more players tie on a hole, the money carries over to the next hole, and so forth.

“You’re either pulling with everybody, or pulling against one person,” Stewart said. “The emotions run pretty high at times. You’ve got three other people you have to beat, or one other person you have to tie.”

Golf Notes

The players will tee off today at 10:30 a.m., then at 8 a.m on Sunday. . . . Bighorn Golf Club measures 6,938 yards from the back tees. Pro Peter Jacobsen, who will be part of the television announcing team, has played the course. “The back side is very flat, a regular desert-type course,” Jacobsen said. “The front nine is very hilly, with Holes 2 through 7 winding up and through a side of a hill. There is a very short par four (290 yards), No. 5, which is drivable, possibly a hole in one. It plays like a long par three. It’s a fair course, but not extremely demanding.”

Fred Couples was asked how the Skins Game compared to the PGA Grand Slam, in which he competed with Tom Kite, Nick Price, and Nick Faldo. “It’s totally different,” he said. “You play nine holes each day, so it’s hard to build momentum. Tom Kite will be someone to contend with because of his consistency, and Greg Norman is tough because he can knock it on the par-fives in two.”