The Year In Review

Tiger Woods not surprisingly won top-player honors, but there were other highlights to the first FedEx Cup season

By Tim Rosaforte

Photo: Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

On the clubhouse steps at Atlanta's East Lake GC Sunday night, Tim Finchem was a happy PGA Tour commissioner. The CEO of Coca-Cola had just walked away smiling, and Tiger Woods was in the media center after winning the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup. For Finchem, the season ended the way he hoped: with his franchise golfer cementing another player-of-the-year award.

Seven wins, one major and more than $10 million (not including the FedEx bonus) in earnings were enough for Woods to say "I told you so" more than once in his news conference, but through the British Open, this did not look like a typical Tiger Woods year. Oh ye of little faith and patience: In his last five events Woods won four times and finished second once to justify his swing changes and kick up Grand Slam talk for 2008.

While Woods repeated as player of the year, the rest of the year-end awards are not as simply defined.

Tournament of the Year

The British Open

It was the one major where Woods did not play well, but Geoff Ogilvy called the conclusion to the Open at Carnoustie, "the best hour of golf on television this year ... even if it wasn't well played." Padraig Harrington went from nearly pulling a Jean Van de Velde to making the best double bogey of the year. Sergio Garcia made the picture of the year when he bent over his belly putter in agony after missing the putt on the 18th green to win the claret jug.

Photo: J.D. Cuban

Surprise Move of the Year

Phil Mickelson leaving Rick Smith for Butch Harmon

Lefty validated the teacher switch by winning the Players -- then coming back from a wrist injury to beat Woods at a memorable Deutsche Bank Championship. And if finally closing out Woods in Boston wasn't enough to make the rivalry the duel of the year, Mickelson put himself into contention for newsmaker of the year by using his victory as a platform to take a shot at Finchem and announce he likely was going to skip the BMW Championship in Chicago.

Photo: Darren Carroll

Comeback Player of the Year

Arron Oberholser

Woods created a new category by naming Steve Stricker the comeback-to-back player of the year, but the year's best comeback belonged to Oberholser, who returned from a disk injury in his back suffered at Kapalua to nearly qualify for the Tour Championship. He missed the West Coast swing (and couldn't defend his title at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am), but returned with a flourish with a T-4 at the PGA and a T-2 at Boston before a broken bone in his hand forced his withdrawal from the BMW Championship.

Photo: David Cannon/Getty Images

Surprise Winner of the Year

Brian Bateman

Zach Johnson would have won this for the Masters title had he not won the AT&T Classic in Atlanta and finished T-2 at the Tour Championship. But Bateman, who got one of the last cards at Q school, was about as unexpected a winner as you can get. He only played twice the first three months of the season and won the Buick Open in July with a final-hole birdie.

Photo: Harry How/Getty Images

Breakout Player of the Year

Boo Weekley

A most competitive category, Weekley proved he was more than the tour's personality of the year. Weekley lit up pressrooms from the Low Country of South Carolina to the Old Country of Scotland. He won at Hilton Head, lost a playoff at the Honda Classic to edge out Hunter Mahan, who notched his first win, had the hottest summer and was picked for the Presidents Cup team, and Aaron Baddeley, who won the FBR Open, led the U.S. Open and BMW Championship through three rounds and finished sixth on the final FedEx Cup points list. Also in contention: K.J. Choi (two wins) and Rory Sabbatini, who had a career year and retained his title as agitator of the year.

Photo: Charles LaBerge