What do Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, and Steve Stricker have in common, beyond the obvious male golfer link (face it some of you were going to pull that rabbit out of a hat)?

Two things actually, they are the only players with a realistic chance to win the inaugural Fedex Cup, and they've figured out how to hit the fairway with a driver.  If you would have offered me a friendly wager that those three players would average more than 74% of fairways hit I would have considered betting my own paycheck.  I would be in tears for the next month.

Consider the unlikelyness of that statistic: Tiger Woods, the guy who made everyone familiar with the term getting the club stuck resulting in golf ball searches to the right of Rush Limbaugh.  Phil Mickelson whose waywardness off the tee led to the phrase "what a stupid I am".  Steve Stricker, a few years ago was unable to hit the planet with a driver in his hands, losing his playing priviledges as a result.  I would of believed Vijay Singh would change his swing and suddenly become enamoured of hitting his second shot after a short woodland nature walk easier than those three guys hitting every fairway in sight.  So what does Mr. Singh do, only begin those nature walks!  This playoff stuff has me completely confounded (not all to difficult a task but this stuff is weirder than trying to figure out who discovered the Stack n' Tilt.)

So we head into Atlanta for the Tour Championship, the final leg of playoff, having witnessed some very compelling golf to this point.  The commissioner, Tim Finchem, can breathe easier with Mr. Woods and Mr Mickelson in the mix despite skipping an event apiece.  He can sacrifice a dozen Pro V's and a couple of Taylormade drivers to the ghost of Old Tom Morris that the third leg of the stool, Mr. Stricker, is the feel good story of the year.  Lastly he can very privately flog for all eternity the dolt who neglected to advise East Lake Country Club they should convert their greens to bermuda grass from bent grass because really hot weather causes bent grass to scream in a nightmarish, blood curdling manner as it dies(not unlike the sound made when one uproots a mandrake root).  I wonder what the thought process was here? " Hey guys, lets move the Tour Championship to September put it at the end of our nifty new playoff so the guys are playing for $10 million bucks." "Wowser, what a great idea!"  Apparently they neglected to consider that East Lake is located in Atlanta, Georgia where August is hot.  I mean really really hot.  Hello, Georgie McFly, is anybody home.  Surely nobody figured they would have record temperatures, double digit numbers of days with temps over 100*, but really, did the arrival of fry eggs on the sidewalk temperatures surprise anyone else.  I thought not.

So here we go, into the Grande Finale, to be played on putting surfaces as smooth as a baby's bottom, provided said baby has a three day growth of stubble on his little dupa cheeks.  I feel really badly for Ralph Kepple, East Lake's superintendent, as the man has worked a miracle in getting these surfaces playable at all.  But the fact remains, someone at the Tour office mucked up badly.  Mr. Finchem deserves even more heat than I've heard or read for this brouhaha.  The fans deserve better, as do the players.  Up to this point the players have delivered an interesting product and for that I as a fan am pleased.  Let's hope Mr. Kepple can work big magics in the next couple of days so the final act doesn't become a farce.  After the drama of the first three events that would indeed be tragedy.