Skinns was defeated in the final of the men’s amateur championship in 2000 before attending the University of Tennessee. From there, he played on the now-defunct Hooters Tour, where he won seven times, and then the Canada Tour.
Eventually, he reached the Korn Ferry Tour, the PGA Tour’s Premier League championship. His third Korn Ferry victory came last year and helped him to the hard-won promotion.
“It’s never a straight line, there are always ups and downs,” he said.
“From the outside, people would say I was struggling, but that was never the case. I never thought about what else; it’s what I’ve been doing for a long time and I know my best is good enough to compete.”
He was for a time a contemporary of current world number one Scottie Scheffler on the Korn Ferry circuit, but he also saw many competitors fall victim to the harsh realities of the ultra-competitive world of the professional game.
“I’ve played an awful lot of golf with equally talented guys and they’re just out of money,” Skinns revealed. “I managed to avoid that knife and still kept getting a little better.”
He added: “The idea of doing anything else never crossed my mind.
“When I first played mini-tour golf as a professional, success wasn’t immediate. When I got good at England Golf, I wasn’t the best. He gave me It took a long time to get there and that seems to have been the story on every level.”
Skinns was one of the last players to take the field at Sawgrass this week, mainly thanks to his fourth place finish at the Cognizant Classic a fortnight ago.
“It was awesome,” he said. “I was in contention and I hung around. Sunday we had the rain delay and it was uncomfortable but Monday I came out with a really good attitude and felt like I could have earn.
“I don’t want to say it’s a relief because that’s not quite the right word. I knew I could compete here. That’s what we’re all looking for.
“Feeling those nerves is why you play. A feeling of arrival, that would be a good way to put it.”
And he’s not intimidated by the prospect of competing with the young, athletic athletes who are so dominant on the world stage these days.
“There are guys like Nick Dunlap (who recently won the American Express tournament as an amateur) who was still in college when he won, but that’s the beauty of golf,” Skinns said .
“There is no age limit until your body can’t do it. I’m 42 and I feel great. I still have the speed and there’s no reason so I can’t continue to improve.
“Guys like Jake Knapp, that’s the new model. Young and strong coming out of college. They have 185 mph ball speed and they’re in the gym all the time and that’s something I have always tried to do and I feel like I can hang on.
“I don’t feel like an old man, I might look like one, but I don’t feel like it. My three kids at home keep me young.”
And Skinns has no shortage of ambition this week. “Being here is great, but I don’t want to be someone who’s just here,” he said. “That’s never been my mentality.
“I feel like Cognizant was a stepping stone. I would love to feel what it’s like to be up close on a Sunday afternoon at the Players. I’ve put a lot of work into feeling what it’s like that resembles.”