PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — A return of a skins game format that will feature Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Jason Day and Hideki Matsuyama will take place on Oct. 21 at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club in Japan, a source tells ESPN.
The one-day competition, which will offer lucrative prize money, will take place a few days prior to the start of the Zozo Championship, a new PGA Tour event being played outside of Tokyo where Woods will also compete.
The structure and prize money are to be determined, but the PGA Tour is sanctioning the event.
The Skins Game was once a popular offseason tournament that featured many of the game’s greats from 1983 to 2005 and was often contested Thanksgiving weekend. Woods played the event seven times, but he never won it.
Typically in a skins competition, a certain amount of money is at stake per hole, with a player earning that sum only if he wins the hole outright. If there are any ties, the money carries over to the next hole until someone shoots the lowest score on the hole. There are various other wrinkles that could be added.
How much this version of a skins game will resemble that is unclear, but this event is part of an agreement Woods has to provide content to GolfTV, an entity that does interviews and other features with Woods at international locations that at this time do not include the United States — although there are negotiations to have the skins event televised in the U.S. market.
GolfTV is a PGA Tour rights-holder.
Steinberg said earlier this year that there were plans for Woods to play a series of matches in Asia beginning later this year. Steinberg declined to comment for this story.
The Zozo Championship debuts Oct. 24-27 at Narashino Country Club outside of Japan and is part of a three-tournament Asia swing on the official PGA Tour schedule that includes the CJ Cup in South Korea and the WGC HSBC Champions in China.
Woods committed to the tournament months ago, and it will likely be his only official PGA Tour start in the fall. Since the PGA Tour went to a wraparound schedule in 2013-14, Woods has never played an official fall event.
The Japan tournament has a 78-player field with no cut and a $9.75 million purse.
This season, Woods has played just 10 times, including his missed cut at The Open. He is skipping this week’s WGC-FedEx St. Jude Classic and not expected to play again until the Northern Trust, which begins Aug. 8.