Winner Takes All

Well, the inaugural FedEx Cup certainly wasn't a new era in golf, but it didn't jump the shark, either.

The game's lone heavyweight, Tiger Woods, saved the day by unifying the title, making sure the Player of the Year, Tour Champion and winner of the inaugural FedEx Cup all share the same skin. The first Super Bowl of golf turned out almost exactly like the first Super Bowl of Super Bowls with Woods reprising the roll of the Green Bay Packers and squashing the upstart Kansas City Chiefs, played by 29 also-rans. He did so with a 23-under-par 257, eight shots better than Georgia specialist Zach Johnson and that adolescent elder statesman, Mark Calcavecchia, who was gamely trying to join Ed Fiori as old, fat guys who have overtaken Woods on a Sunday afternoon.

In the process Woods not only won the Tour Championship at East Lake GC in Atlanta for his 61st career victory, just one shy of Arnold Palmer, but he captured the only prize in the roughly six centuries of recorded history of the game that came equipped with its own actuarial tables -- the $10 million deferred FedEx Cup payout. At the prize-giving the photogs should have yelled, "Hey, Tiger, show us your 401-k!"

Woods went into Sunday with a three-shot lead, dropped a shot at the second, made a crucial par putt on the third, stuffed a 6-iron on the sixth for birdie, added another from five feet on eight and one more on the par-5 ninth, ho-hummed a 66 and that was that. The only exciting thing all day was when Woods got a scorching flier from a bad lie in the rough on the ninth and pulled his 5-wood second shot, hitting it nearly 300 yards and running it through the green while Johnson was standing there, preparing to putt for birdie. He immediately three-jacked.

"I felt bad because those guys were playing, and they were focused on what they were trying to do," said Woods who obviously didn't think he could reach the green. "It's my responsibility not to interfere with what they were doing up there with a shot like that." It was just about the only mistake he has made in the last month and a half while winning four times and finishing second once.

Immediately after Saturday's third round, in the media scrum behind the grandstand to the left of the 18th green, Woods and Calcavecchia were crisscrossing like ships in the America's Cup, tacking from one interview station to another. As Calcavecchia stood on a television platform that looked remarkably like a small gallows, Woods flipped a golf tee at his old buddy, hitting him in the arm as he walked past, grinning. Woods has always had a playful side, but it has never looked quite so accessible as it does now. Through all the personal, private changes of the last few years, Woods seems like a man who has mastered solo flight. It is as if his choice to rely on himself more than on a single teacher is a metaphor for a man in full. In a world where being Tiger Woods can be a daunting task, he seems frighteningly comfortable doing it and that, in turn, has made his golf as smooth as a gravy sandwich.

The FedEx Cup may have been, in some respects, less a season-ending crescendo than a rimshot. But any reasonable appraisal must acknowledge this made-for-TV-money "playoff" got more top players to play more golf than any of them wanted to, for more money than seems good for them, in a point system skewed to favor the favorites. If sometimes these playoffs seemed destined for the fate of New Coke or the Susan B. Anthony dollar, the war planners of Ponte Vedra Beach can take some comfort in its modest successes.

At various points in what commissioner Tim Finchem described as "repartee," the suits have been accused of bungling the name, the format, the length, the big prize at the end and the ubiquitous, unctuous promotions. If the Tour Championship is the Super Bowl, then the wild card, divisional games and conference championship were all played for the express purpose of replacing three guys with no chance of winning the FedEx Cup -- Luke Donald, David Toms and Stuart Appleby -- with three other guys with no chance of winning the FedEx Cup -- Brett Wetterich, Tim Clark and Camilo Villegas. Of course, there was the illusion of Steve Stricker (who ultimately finished second in the playoffs), which, as illusions go, was a very pleasant one. And the Boston duel between Phil Mickelson and Woods was proof the tour got one thing right -- the pairings. But was it really all that different than Doral '05 or just more stage-managed?