THE TOUR Championship - Race For 2nd Place.

"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men....." -Robert Burns. Ah, Burnsie, the velvet tongued Scot. And a connection to the game. What Scot wouldn't have one? The scheme was to have the FedExCup playoffs build to a crescendo and crown a victor from among the remaining 30 warriors here at East Lake for THE TOUR Championship. Oops. Vijay Singh preempted the plan and scored the ten million dollar crown nigh on two weeks ago. If he stays vertical and plays four rounds of golf, he goes home in a Brinks truck. If I were Vijay I'd seriously consider a golf helmet. Nasty falls, or more likely, errant shots wouldn't get between me and 10 million dead presidents. The mouse? Well, commissioner Finchem of course. In the first two years of existence his plan got skewered by someone winning two of the four events. I'm sure he'll figure it out eventually regarding the awarding of points. I think he should have anticipated though that any championship held the immediate week after the Ryder Cup would suffer from prestige lag. This event , with it's weakened field and poor positioning, is now relegated to 2nd class status. We still have the men though. Let's have a look at the men.

The men. No Adam Scott, Geoff Ogilvy, or Padraig Harrington. No European Ryder Cupper except Sergio. No Tiger obviously. He's ranked 70th in points and missed the field anyway. Worst of all, no Boo Weekly! Wait, no J.B. Holmes either. NFL here I come. On the bright side, we do get Mickelson, Els, Stricker, Furyk, and Anthony Kim. Weekly and Holmes are the only two American Cuppers that failed to qualify.

I'm jumping on the Camilo Villegas band wagon for this one. I think his is the only bandwagon I haven't been on this year. Motivation shouldn't be a problem. The total purse for THE TOUR Championship is 7 million dollars with 1.26 million going to the winner. Walking around money for Vijay. All told, 16.5 million will be paid to the top ten FedExCup finishers. For the record, another mind boggling number, the PGA Tour will pay out 278 million dollars in prize money this year spread over 48 official events. That's a good down payment to bail out Wall Street. It also makes this average golfer question my dad's idea of sticking a baseball bat in my hands when I was four.

Til' next,