Mark O’Meara and Nick Price win skills event
Mark O’Meara and Nick Price won the 19th annual ADT Golf Skills Challenge at The Breakers on Monday, beating Fred Couples and Dustin Johnson.
The format is a “reverse scramble final” in which teams chose the worst shot of their opponents to be played throughout the par-4 10th hole. The event finalists had to play out the hole two times to come up with the winners after both teams shot par on the first go around.
Price holed for par on his second try to secure the win, while O’Meara, Couples and Johnson were unable to par the hole.
“Certainly with those two guys hitting the ball as far as they do I said to Mark, ‘If we just keep the ball in play and just keep making pars one of them is going to hit a bad tee shot, eventually,’ ” Price said. “They put themselves on the wrong side of the hole and left themselves a really difficult chip shot.”
Couples and Johnson looked good otherwise, winning four of the six skills challenges: long drive, mid-iron, trouble shot, and short iron. Price and O’Meara won the chip shot.
Rickie Fowler and Scott Verplank were third and won the bunker-shot challenge.
Former NHL superstar Wayne Gretzky, the only non-professional golfer in the field, teamed with Ricky Barnes to come in fourth. Their team earned $132,000, and Gretzky was donating his portion of the money to his charity.
“I think golf is the one sport that we can all do to emulate the pros,” Gretzky said. “It’s hard to get out there and try to go one-on-one against Shaq, it’s hard to get on the ice against the NHL. But we can get on the golf course because it’s us and the course.”
