Wendy's Champions Skins Game: Final-day notebook

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KAANAPALI, Hawaii -- It's back to the future as Fuzzy Zoeller repeats as champion of the Wendy's Champions Skins Game, this time with new partner Ben Crenshaw, who not only earned his first Wendy's Champions Skins Game paycheck, but his first title in any Skins Game. After getting shut out in his first event appearance (2002), Zoeller's teams (Crenshaw this year, the injured Peter Jacobsen last year) have racked up 18 skins and $850,000 in the last two events.

RECORDS: The $530,000 haul by Zoeller and Crenshaw is an event record for most money earned in the event, breaking the $510,000 earned by Ray Floyd and Dana Quigley in 2006. The 12 back-nine skins is another event record and the 13 skins Zoeller and Crenshaw earned is one shy of the 14 recorded by Chi Chi Rodriguez (1988) and Floyd (1995). Meanwhile, the eight skins earned on the 12th hole by Zoeller and Crenshaw is the second most earned on one hole.

THIS IS A TRUE RARITY: For the first time since 1998 and only the second time in his remarkable history in the Wendy's Champions Skins Game, Jack Nicklaus was blanked. For the first time in his seven years in the event, Tom Watson was shut out. The pair have combined for five victories and 148 skins in their combined 26 appearances.

WHERE ARE ALL THE BIRDIES? The 12 birdies earned by the four teams was the fewest birdies since 2002. Zoeller and Crenshaw rolled in an 2009 high of five.

MORE PERSPECTIVE: When Gary Player was interviewed by ESPN's Judy Rankin after he and Bernhard Langer won their one and only skin on the 13th hole, he put winning $50,000 into perspective. "My father never made that in 10 years working deep in the earth in a gold mine."

YOU KNOW WHO'S BUYING LUNCH: By virtue of their victory, both Zoeller and Crenshaw, along with caddies Cayce Kerr and Jim Haugh, will feast on a year's worth of Wendy's hamburgers. Also earning a year's worth of free food for their capture of the $100,000 Wendy's Super Skin is Greg Norman, Jay Haas and their caddies Gregory Norman and Tommy Lamb.

WE'RE GOING OVERTIME AGAIN: For the 18th time in the 22-year history of the Wendy's Champions Skins Game, the players needed extra holes to decide matters. This edition went two extra holes and ended with Jay Haas' tap-in par putt on the second playoff hole to capture the $100,000 Wendy's Super Skin.

THE TRUE BENEFICIARIES: The players donated 5% of their winnings to the following selected charities:
--Ben Crenshaw: Impact Player Partners
--Jay Haas: Blade Junior Golf Classic/Greenville Memorial Hospital Children's Pediatric Cancer Treatment Center
--Bernhard Langer: Fore Kids
--Jack Nicklaus: Nicklaus Children's Healthcare Foundation
--Greg Norman: National Childhood Cancer Foundation
--Gary Player: The Gary Player Foundation
--Tom Watson: The First Tee of Kansas City
--Fuzzy Zoeller: Fuzzy's Kids

MORE ON BEN'S CHARITY: Getting a much-deserved front-row seat for Crenshaw and Zoeller's remarkable morning were two members of the Impact Player Partners Board of Directors: Dick Lynch and James Johnson, a wounded veteran from Iraq. Johnson, who spent a year in the hospital after being severely wounded in Iraq, couldn't stop smiling afterward.

"I've had the opportunity to help other veterans who were wounded and I can't say enough about what Ben Crenshaw has done for us," Johnson said. "And Peter Jacobsen as well; the two of them have done a tremendous job for our organization."