Senior Skins has gone through its share of makeovers the past 20 years, from the golfers to the sites and format. Its 21st reincarnation comes this weekend when it debuts at the Royal Ka'anapali Golf Course.

The Maui course is the fifth to host what is now called the Wendy's Champions Skins Game. It started in 1988 at Turtle Bay and moved for just a moment to the Mainland (La Quinta in 1989) before settling here for good. It had an 11-year run at Mauna Lani before heading to Wailea the last seven years.

The "constants" have been Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, the two men most responsible for making the game popular before Tiger Woods and the reason this event remains intriguing while the regular Skins Game languishes.

The format can be fascinating. That, along with Nicklaus, Palmer and wintertime views of paradise, have kept the event popular for TV audiences. ABC used this as a prelude to its Super Bowl coverage. Its biggest ratings came in 1986 and '87, when Senior Skins was watched by more than 6 million homes — better ratings than the U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship would get. From 1990 to '92 it was the third-most watched golf on television after The Masters and U.S. Open.

Palmer, 78, has missed just one Senior Skins, in 1997 after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer; Nicklaus, 68, will be playing in his 17th. He is the event's leading money winner and hit the decisive shot last year when his approach to the final $100,000 hole of regulation stopped 10 inches from the pin. Partner Tom Watson tapped in for birdie to tie Gary Player and Jay Haas and force extra holes for the 16th time in 20 years.

"The way I was struggling with my short strokes out there he told me on the 18th hole, 'You're not going to have a chance to putt this. I'm going to hit it so close you're not going to have to putt this,' " Watson recalled. "And he did. That's 'Nicklausian,' that's what that is."

When Player and Haas bogeyed the first extra hole and Palmer made a 10-foot birdie on the second, Nicklaus and Watson got the win with nine skins and $320,000, giving the Golden Bear a career-record 96 skins and $2,295,000. It was the first time since 2000 everyone won money.

Nicklaus has three Senior Skins Games wins to go with his 20 majors and 113 tournament victories worldwide. Golf Magazine's Golfer of the Century has also been part of some of the Game's most fascinating moments, though he claims not to remember. "The three times I won are my best memories," Nicklaus said. "The rest of them I've already forgotten."

Chi Chi Rodriguez won the first two Senior Skins, collecting $300,000 of the $360,000 available at the inaugural event. Sam Snead was shut out that year in his only appearance.

Palmer won three of the next four before Raymond Floyd went on a five-year tear that Hale Irwin snapped in 1999. Palmer's $240,000 victory in 1990 was the biggest payday of his career. His $215,000 birdie at the 16th was worth more than he made his best year on tour. Palmer has won 97 tournaments.

Player got his lone win in 2000, ending an 11-year, 60-hole Skins drought by birdieing the final four holes to sneak past Palmer, Nicklaus and Watson.

Irwin captured the next two thanks, in part, to Nicklaus. In 2001, Nicklaus faced a 4-foot birdie putt and a dilemma only a Skins Game can conjure up on the 18th green: If he made the putt he would match Player and extend the Game; a Nicklaus miss would give him the win.

He made it and Irwin, who had faced the same quandary two years earlier, beat him with birdie on the first extra hole. "I would never miss one on purpose, I promise you," Nicklaus said.

Player, who lost out on $180,000, joked that "if he had missed it, genuinely he would have felt a lot better now."

It was Lee Trevino who felt better in 2003. He hadn't won a Skin since 1994 and it remains his only Senior Skins Game win. Before he sank an 18-foot birdie putt to send it into overtime on the final hole of regulation, he told a joke, sang the "Beverly Hillbillies" theme song and admitted he had no idea where the putt was going.

In one of the most lopsided Games, Nicklaus clinched the win on the 15th hole in 2005 after sinking a 14-foot birdie putt worth $340,000 and 11 skins.

The format flipped to alternate-shot, two-man teams in 2006. Floyd and Dana Quigley won the first when Floyd drained an 8-footer on the 17th worth $410,000. He admitted afterward he hit the putt "fat."

This year's teams will probably have a story of their own. Nicklaus and Watson will defend their title against Palmer and Jay Haas, Loren Roberts and Player, and Fuzzy Zoeller and Peter Jacobsen.