Eyes On The Prize

ATLANTA - One thing about the PGA Tour has not changed in more than a decade: With or without the FedEx Cup, the season-ending playoff system devised to create a new era in golf, Tiger Woods continues to possess the all-encompassing power to give an event complete credibility.

Like, say, every week he plays.

All of which takes us to today's opening round of the playoff-ending Tour Championship, where on Sunday at East Lake Golf Club, the first FedEx Cup and its $10 million bonus prize will be presented with all the pomp and circumstance of a royal knighting.

But what if the wrong guy is overnighted into history?

Woods is the undisputed No. 1 player in the world. He's won six times this year - three more than anybody else - including his 13th major at the PGA Championship. Picking up a ninth Player of the Year Award is a formality.

So what will be the public's verdict if the FedEx Cup's first winner is not golf's best player?

'Well, I think you've got to look at it as how other sports look at it,' Woods said. 'It can be the best team of the season and still not win the championship. That's how this playoff was kind of instituted. You can win 30 tournaments throughout the year and be Player of the Year but you just don't get the FedEx Cup, you just didn't play well at the right time.

'That's the nature of how most sports are. I think we tried to emulate that in our sport.'

That's a bonus to Steve Stricker, currently second on the points list but a distant long shot before the playoff series began.

'It's just like any other playoffs,' Stricker said. 'You could be in baseball and have the best record of the year and get into the playoffs and not win the World Series, or vice versa.'

Say this for the FedEx Cup finale: Three of the top five players in the world rankings start play today 1-2-3 in the points standing. Woods is No. 1, Stricker has played his way up to No. 5 and Phil Mickelson is No. 2 in the world and third in FedEx Cup points.

After that trio, only two others, Rory Sabbatini and K.J. Choi, have even the slightest chance in the FedEx Cup race.

For an event looking to win public approval, if Woods does not distinguish himself as the first FedEx Cup winner, Mickelson would be the next best thing. The left-hander draws almost as many fans as Woods and is seen as the most talented, consistent challenger.

Stricker, on the other hand, would provide the ever-popular Cinderella Story angle but isn't likely to leave an indelible mark in golf's archives.

After losing full-exempt status for 2005, Stricker has played the best golf of his career during the past month. A victory at The Barclays to open FedEx Cup playoff action was the fourth of Stricker's career but first since 2001.

'I keep pinching myself,' Stricker said. 'I really do.'

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem might be doing the same thing, only for other reasons late Sunday if nothing goes to plan. Even the long-shot possibility that the first FedEx Cup winner could be none other than Sabbatini, Woods' personal punching bag, could be enough to send golf fans into hiding.

'I think that it will take a while for winning the FedEx Cup to have the same type of stature as winning a major or having a year where you win five or six tournaments like Tiger has this year,' Mickelson said. 'It'll take a few years.

'I think it has been successful. Maybe not to the degree that everybody wants it to be the first year, but I think it will get to that point.'